http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/ The Magazine's recommended daily allowance of news, culture and your letters. en Copyright 2009 Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:37:35 +0000 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/?v=4.1 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Snippets from the week's news, sliced, diced and processed for your convenience. 1. Gordon Brown gave up a £2m pension on his first day in office More details 2. At peak times, 32,000 pedestrians cross Oxford Circus junction in one hour. More details (Times) 3. Lyrics from Jon Bon Jovi's new album are framed and hanging up in the White House. More details 4. Journalists visiting Sesame Street are banned from asking Bert and Ernie if they are gay. More details 5. The BBC rejected Sesame Street in 1971 because it was "too authoritarian". More details 6. Elmo's favourite food is wasabi . More details 7. Tall men can have small parents. More details (Guardian) 8. Part-time veggies are called flexitarians. More details 9. A missing child must usually have been missing for at least two years to warrant an age progression image. More details 10. French babies cry with an accent. More details Seen 10 things? Send us a picture to use next week. Thanks to Alan Chesterman for this week's picture of 10 gold rings. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2009/11/10_things_we_didnt_know_last_w_112.shtml http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2009/11/10_things_we_didnt_know_last_w_112.shtml 10 Things... Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:37:35 +0000 Snippets from the week's news, sliced, diced and processed for your convenience. 1. The city of Bath, in Somerset, was referred to as "The Bath" until the 19th Century. More details 2. Bears don't like honey, and aren't even very keen on berries and nuts. More details 3. Scouts can deliver post. More details 4. Barbara Windsor was the second actress to play Peggy Mitchell in EastEnders. More details 5. Tattoos can be done with a person's ashes. More details 6. The average American spends $66.45 (£40) on Halloween. More details 7. When a shark pup is born its liver makes up 20% of its body mass More details 8. The world's oldest dog is 20. More details 9. The secret to a happy marriage for men is choosing a wife who is smarter and at least five years younger. More details 10. A man has been sent to jail for driving a motorised chair while drunk. More details Seen 10 things? Send us a picture to use next week. Thanks to Kate Gandhi for this week's picture of 10 small windows. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2009/10/10_things_we_didnt_know_last_w_111.shtml http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2009/10/10_things_we_didnt_know_last_w_111.shtml 10 Things... Fri, 30 Oct 2009 18:00:28 +0000 Snippets from the week's news, sliced, diced and processed for your convenience. 1. Humpback whales' mating rituals can be deadly. More details 2. Galaxies that are 10.2 billion light-years away can be seen through telescopes. More details 3. Wine gums have the names of alcoholic drinks on them. More details (Daily Mail) 4. People spent £37m on cup cakes in the UK last year. More details 5. The spread of cupcake shops has been used to map urban gentrification in the US. More details 6. Bagged salad is photographed 4,000 times a second. More details 7. The most available time of week for a meeting is Tuesday at 3pm. More details 8. GPS locates the Prime Meridian 100m to the east of Greenwich Observatory. More details 9. Sales of Asterix books number 325 million. More details 10. The first watches appeared shortly after 1500 in Germany. More details Seen 10 things? Send us a picture to use next week. Thanks to Vic Barton-Walderstadt for this week's picture of 10 berries. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2009/10/10_things_we_didnt_know_last_w_110.shtml http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2009/10/10_things_we_didnt_know_last_w_110.shtml 10 Things... Fri, 23 Oct 2009 16:10:41 +0000 Snippets from the week's news, sliced, diced and processed for your convenience. 1. Earth's warmest year was 1998. More details 2. Morecambe and Wise nearly split up, before they had even got on television. More details 3. Sailors in Tudor times had man bags. More details (Times) 4. Some spiders are vegetarian. More details 5. Each person has 1.5kg of probiotic bacteria in their digestive system, on average. More details 6. The placebo effect is real. More details (Times) 7. Boyzone sold more singles than Take That in the 1990s. More details 8. Culled rabbits are used to heat homes in Sweden. More details 9. William Pitt's dying words were about House of Commons catering. More details 10. Jeremy Clarkson's father was friends with the Monty Python team. More details (Times) Seen 10 things? Send us a picture to use next week. Thanks to Arthur Fallas, from Waterloo, Belgium, for this week's picture of 10 cactus balls in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2009/10/10_things_we_didnt_know_last_w_109.shtml http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2009/10/10_things_we_didnt_know_last_w_109.shtml 10 Things... Fri, 16 Oct 2009 17:17:45 +0000 Snippets from the week's news, sliced, diced and processed for your convenience. 1. Male life expectancy in the UK goes up by about three months every year. More details 2. Fidel Castro stopped smoking cigars in 1985. More details 3. In the early days of barcodes there was a plan for round ones. More details 4. In the UK, 26 million addresses get post. More details 5. Japan has a theme park where children pretend to be fast food workers. More details 6. Only two serving US presidents won the Nobel peace prize before Barack Obama - Theodore Roosevelt in 1906 and Woodrow Wilson in 1919. More details (the Guardian) 7. The flash on David Bowie's Aladdin Sane album cover was inspired by the logo from a rice cooker. More details 8. Wild animals in zoos in Gaza have to be smuggled in tunnels under the border. More details 9. There was a royal blood disorder. More details 10. Low-quality females prefer low-quality males. In the world of zebra finches at least. More details Seen 10 things? Send us a picture to use next week.Thanks to Margaret Emerson for this picture of 10 roses bought in aid of Breast Cancer Research. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2009/10/10_things_we_didnt_know_last_w_108.shtml http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2009/10/10_things_we_didnt_know_last_w_108.shtml 10 Things... Fri, 09 Oct 2009 17:20:32 +0000 Snippets from the week's news, sliced, diced and processed for your convenience. 1. The UK produces 8% of the world's scientific papers, the third most behind the US and China. More details 2. Ken Livingstone was twice rejected for a cameo in EastEnders. More details 3. Colin Powell speaks Yiddish. More details (the Times) 4. Tesco sells two sewing machines every minute. More details 5. Homes are 4C warmer, on average, than they were 50 years ago. More details 6. Turtles can swim 900km (559 miles) in a month. More details 7. Coffins can be made out of banana leaves. Keith Floyd was buried in one. More details 8. Michael Jackson had tattooed eyebrows and lips. More details 9. The most common names for swingers are Paul and Catherine. More details (Daily Telegraph) 10. There are about 100 million bubbles in a bottle of champagne. More details (Daily Mirror) Seen 10 things? Send us a picture to use next week. Thanks to Jo Lewis for this week's picture of 10 red hot pokers at St Agnes on the Isles of Scilly. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2009/10/10_things_we_didnt_know_last_w_107.shtml http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2009/10/10_things_we_didnt_know_last_w_107.shtml 10 Things... Fri, 02 Oct 2009 17:25:18 +0000 Snippets from the week's news, sliced, diced and processed for your convenience. 1. Banana skins can take two years to biodegrade. More details 2. The longest speech at the United Nations lasted almost eight hours. More details 3. Brazil always speaks first at the UN General Assembly, according to long-standing protocol, and is followed by the host country. More details 4. Jay-Z has Barack Obama's mobile phone number. More details 5. Swine flu gel can get you drunk. More details 6. British heroin comes from Hampshire. More details 7. Michael Gambon, star of the Harry Potter films, has never read any of the books. More details 8. The only woman ever in the French Foreign Legion is British. More details 9. Ceefax was created by accident. More details 10. Fifteen Billy bookcases are made every minute. More details Seen 10 things? Send us a picture to use next week. Thanks to Katie McDowell for this week's picture of 10 elephant seals near San Simeon in California. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2009/09/10_things_we_didnt_know_last_w_106.shtml http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2009/09/10_things_we_didnt_know_last_w_106.shtml 10 Things... Fri, 25 Sep 2009 17:22:03 +0000 Snippets from the week's news, sliced, diced and processed for your convenience. 1. The Da Vinci Code and Dan Brown's three previous books are the UK's top four bestselling adult paperback novels of all time. More details (the Times) 2. If you buy an item worth more than £100 with a credit card and it breaks because of a fault, the credit card provider is liable. More details 3. In Freemasonry, there is a death ritual in which a mock murder is performed. More details 4. A typical human has enough body fat to sustain about 40 marathons. More details 5. Tyrannosaurus Rex developed from a near-identical but much smaller predecessor. More details 6. Sportswear firms Adidas and Puma have had a 60-year feud. More details 7. Monkeys suffer colour blindness. More details 8. Pregnancy may help athletes to be more flexible. More details 9. All British industrial action ballots must be by post, except for workers at sea. More details 10. Vera Lynn had three songs in the first ever Top 12 in 1952, when Britain first introduced official sales charts. More details (the Times) Seen 10 things? Send us a picture to use next week. Thanks to Fiona May, for this photo of 10 pelican foot shells on an Irish beach. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2009/09/10_things_we_didnt_know_last_w_105.shtml http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2009/09/10_things_we_didnt_know_last_w_105.shtml 10 Things... Fri, 18 Sep 2009 16:35:46 +0000 Snippets from the week's news, sliced, diced and processed for your convenience. 1. Married couples used to always sleep apart. More details 2. Criminal trials in Japan have a 99% conviction rate. More details 3. The world's oldest circle of church bells is in Ipswich. More details 4. Both parties file for divorce in only one in 300 cases, on average. More details 5. Peter Andre's surname is actually Andrea. More details 6. The subject with the most GCSE passes this year was chemistry. More details 7. Everyone once used the left-hand side of the road. More details 8. There are so few redheads in Mexico that they often greet each other in the street. More details 9. Silvio Berlusconi is the same height as Nicolas Sarkozy. More details 10. "Posh" tea company Twinings is owned by Associated British Foods, which also own budget clothes chain Primark. (Radio 4's Today, Monday) Seen 10 things? Send us a picture to use next week. Thanks to Janet Worman, of Highworth, Wiltshire, and Ed, London, for things. And to Janet Cremetti of Redditch for this week's picture of 10 Indian runner ducks at a county fair in Warwickshire. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2009/09/10_things_we_didnt_know_last_w_104.shtml http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2009/09/10_things_we_didnt_know_last_w_104.shtml 10 Things... Fri, 11 Sep 2009 17:37:10 +0000 Snippets from the week's news, sliced, diced and processed for your convenience. 1. The village of Cambourne, in Cambridgeshire, has a higher birth rate than India and China. More details 2. Block capitals are used to signify formality. More details 3. Only half of seven-year-olds with an August birthday reach expected educational level. More details 4. WalMart is the biggest employer in the world. More details 5. It is not against the law to be naked in public in the UK. More details 6. Michael Aspel was a wartime evacuee. More details 7. Each of us has at least 100 new mutations in our DNA. More details 8. Britain's oldest original computer, the Harwell, first ran in 1951. More details 9. The crease under your buttocks is called the gluteal fold. More details 10. Nasa gave moon rocks to more than 100 countries following lunar missions in the 1970s. More details Seen 10 things? Send us a picture to use next week. Thanks to Lisa Taylor from Cambridgeshire for this week's picture of 10 onions. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2009/09/10_things_we_didnt_know_last_w_103.shtml http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2009/09/10_things_we_didnt_know_last_w_103.shtml 10 Things... Fri, 04 Sep 2009 17:10:53 +0000 Snippets from the week's news, sliced, diced and processed for your convenience. 1. iPhones are not yet sold in China. More details 2. Margaret Thatcher suffered one parliamentary defeat as prime minister - on Sunday trading laws. More details 3. English holidaymakers drink an average of eight alcoholic drinks a day. More details 4. The UK population grew more in 2008 than at any time since 1962. More details 5. And Germany's population is shrinking. More details 6. West Ham's stadium is really called the Boleyn Ground, not Upton Park. More details (Guardian) 7. The smell of cut grass makes people happy. More details (Telegraph) 8. A pint glass lasts an average of only three months. More details (Times) 9. An Englishman sailed to the "New World" only two years after the first European is thought to have landed in Newfoundland. More details 10. Men in China cannot marry until aged 22. More details (Times) Seen 10 things? Send us a picture to use next week. Thanks to Vic Barton-Walderstadt for this week's picture of 10 deckchairs in Welwyn Garden City. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2009/08/10_things_we_didnt_know_last_w_102.shtml http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2009/08/10_things_we_didnt_know_last_w_102.shtml 10 Things... Fri, 28 Aug 2009 17:06:24 +0000 Snippets from the week's news, sliced, diced and processed for your convenience. 1. PowerPoint was originally called Presentation. More details 2. The average length of a PowerPoint presentation is 250 mins. More details 3. Emoticons in the East are the right way up (^_^). More details 4. The British Board of Film Classification has denied only three titles seeking an 18 rating during the last four years. More details 5. Surnames can have question marks. More details 6. You can write using squid ink. More details 7. Cricketer Andrew Flintoff played chess for Lancashire as a schoolboy. More details 8. The number of people reporting UFO sightings leapt up in the year when Independence Day was released in the UK. More details 9. London Ashford Airport and London Southend Airport are not officially recognised as London airports. More details 10. Four people died after being stung by a wasp, bee or hornet, in England and Wales in 2007. More details Seen 10 things? Send us a picture to use next week. Thanks to Kate Dewsbury for this week's picture of 10 empty milk bottles and thanks also to Nuno Aragao from Portugal for one of the things. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2009/08/10_things_we_didnt_know_last_w_101.shtml http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2009/08/10_things_we_didnt_know_last_w_101.shtml 10 Things... Fri, 21 Aug 2009 16:07:30 +0000 Snippets from the week's news, sliced, diced and processed for your convenience. 1. You're as likely to be hit by lightning as be killed by a mentally ill person. More details 2. It's illegal for British people to play the UK Lottery while on holiday in Spain and the US. More details 3. Tom Cruise has got a 14-year-old son. More details 4. Only about one or two in 200 people with autism have a savant talent, or exceptional ability. More details 5. There's a 40-year wait for an allotment in one part of London. More details 6. A freak wave is one that measures roughly three times higher than other swells on the sea at any one time. More details 7. They tend to occur at an incidence of about three waves in every 10,000. More details 8. North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il has a water slide in his garden. More details 9. Young men in their early 20s are the worst at keeping their NHS appointments. More details 10. Les Paul, whose name is synonymous with the electric guitar, also invented the eight-track tape recorder. More details Seen 10 things? Send us a picture to use next week. Thanks to Peter Bissell for this week's picture of 10 caterpillars. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2009/08/snippets_from_the_weeks_news.shtml http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2009/08/snippets_from_the_weeks_news.shtml 10 Things... Fri, 14 Aug 2009 16:26:00 +0000 Snippets from the week's news, sliced, diced and processed for your convenience. 1. Wild orangutans use leaves to make their voices deeper and to scare predators. More details 2. University degrees in comedy exist. More details 3. European bison live in just one forest, on the Belarus-Poland border. More details 4. Men At Work's Down Under was inspired by Dame Edna's nephew. More details 5. Aesop's fable about a crow using stones to drink out of a pitcher is based on fact. More details 6. 17 million people in Britain aged over 15 do not use the internet. More details 7. Millions of people in Germany and Scandinavia watch an obscure British comedy sketch every New Year's Eve. More details 8. Last year Britons sent 80 billion texts. More details (Channel 4) 9. Bristol is the fourth most visited city in England. More details 10. Director John Hughes sometimes wrote under a pseudonym taken from an Alexandre Dumas novel. More details Seen 10 things? Send us a picture to use next week. Thanks to Catriona Morrison for this week's picture of 10 overalls in Amersfoot, Netherlands. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2009/08/10_things_we_didnt_know_last_w_100.shtml http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2009/08/10_things_we_didnt_know_last_w_100.shtml 10 Things... Fri, 07 Aug 2009 16:56:04 +0000 Snippets from the week's news, sliced, diced and processed for your convenience. 1. Stoke City were huge in Norway in the 80s. More details (the Times) 2. A third of England's coastline is inaccessible. More details 3. Police officers are not required to be able to swim. More details (Teletext) 4. 10 million people drive to work every day. More details (Daily Telegraph) 5. The dye used in blue M&Ms can help mend spinal injuries. More details (Daily Telegraph) 6. Poverty, as measured by the government, can decline during a recession. More details 7. Broadband speed is decided before the signal even leaves the exchange. More details 8. Poet Robert Browning used the T-word while thinking it was an item of clothing for a nun. More details 9. Chimpanzees are biologically programmed to appreciate pleasant music. More details 10. Bees warn other bees about flowers where dangers can be expected. More details Seen 10 things? Send us a picture to use next week. Thanks to Anita Bekker for this picture of 10 boats. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2009/07/10_things_we_didnt_know_last_w_99.shtml http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2009/07/10_things_we_didnt_know_last_w_99.shtml 10 Things... Fri, 31 Jul 2009 17:00:40 +0000