10 things we didn't know this time last week

10 THINGS 10 pegs - by Rosemary May Your chance to be creative. See 10 things? Send us a picture

It's easy to lose track of the news. So at the end of the week, it's good to keep an eye on some of those things which shouldn't go unnoticed.

If you spot something you think should be included next week, send it to us using the form at the bottom of the page.

 

1. The big red button to fire cruise missiles is fiction, at least on board the Royal Navy submarine HMS Splendid. Instead they are fired by the click of a mouse. One crew member, filmed during the Iraq war, tells this weekend's edition of the BBC documentary Fighting the War: "A left mouse push fires it. Kinda crazy really. We actually asked for a great big red button, but they wouldn't give us one."

2. It's not just babies and dogs that need passports nowadays. Plants do too. Well, certain plants do if you are importing or exporting them. Top of the list for needing their burgundy booklet are beet, ornamental quince, oranges and lemons, cotoneaster, kumquats and hops. And the good news is that you can apply for all these documents online.

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3. Urban birds sing louder than their country cousins to make themselves heard over traffic noise. Great tits near busy roads have adapted their song in order to attract mates above the rumble of traffic.

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4. "Naff" originally meant tasteless or hetrosexual. It comes from the coded slang, Polari, used by gay men in the 1950s to signal interest in each other without raising suspicion. "Vada that eek", for instance, translated as "look at that face" - which can be admiring or bitchy depending on the tone. The dialect is making a comeback today as gays explore their history; a dictionary has been published.

The dandy highwayman at his peak

5. When Adam Ant was a struggling musician, he paid Malcolm McLaren £1,000 to manage his band for a month. McLaren advised he needed something that was a little bit American Indian, a little bit pirate... and then promptly poached his band to form Bow Wow Wow. Ant and his new band went on to have a string of worldwide hits. Bow Wow Wow sang, er, wait, it'll come back to us soon...

6. Bathtime toys are helping scientists understand ocean currents. A flotilla of rubber duckies - and toy frogs and beavers and turtles - has been tracked around the world for 11 years after falling off a container ship en route from China to Seattle. The ducks are due to wash up on the coast of New England any day now.

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7. The world's first aerogramme was sent from Iraq this week in 1933. Douglas Gumbley was director general of posts and telegraphs in the country when he realised that if letters were of a fixed size and weight, many more could be carried by plane. His invention was not sealed at the sides. He explained to officials: "The Administration, however, relies more on the psychological effect of the presence of these openings than on actual inspection by the sorting staff."

SEVEN DAYS If all this is old news to you, you could always try our weekly news quiz, Seven Days Seven Questions Click here for the quiz

8. Readers of tabloid newspapers are more scared of crime than readers of broadsheet newspapers. The British Crime Survey, published this week, reveals that 43% of tabloid readers believe crime has shot up over the last two years compared with only 26% of those who regularly read a broadsheet.

9. And last year's crime statistics could have made unsettling reading - there was a huge jump in the number of murders in 2001-02. This was down to one man alone - Harold Shipman. The conviction of the former GP, who murdered 215 of his elderly patients over a number of years, meant the deaths were added en masse to the 285 murders committed in that year.

10. Britons love bananas - the fruit is the biggest selling edible item stocked by UK supermarkets. Only sales of petrol and lottery tickets outstrip the bendy yellow fruit.

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If you see something you think should be included next week, let us know using the form below.