10 things we didn't know this time last week

10 THINGS

Cube 10 - by Jonathen Winterburn

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. While Alan Milburn celebrates his escape from politics to spend time with his boys, his former colleague Charles Clarke, the education minister, has been remembering his own boyhood. His nickname at school, he told the CBBC Newsround site, was Big Ears. Friends have also told how he was called FA Cup.

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2. There's been a flowering of newspapers in Iraq since Saddam Hussein fell, with 70 being published in Baghdad alone. The Washington Post reports there are papers from Shiite clerics, one from a Sunni, there's the new Baghdad edition of the London-based Azzamam, a Communist daily, a satirical weekly, and several Kurdish papers. Newspaper vendor Aydan Hatem told the paper he does a brisk business. '"Some people buy 10, 15 newspapers at a time," he says. He used to sell the government-run papers. "I sell more than before."'

Nice specs, neighbour

3. Author Alan Bennett used to be one of Morrissey's neighbours. But he never quite got on last name terms with the charming man. "I would automatically call somebody by their first name. But if they only had one name, I would tend not to call them anything at all. I wouldn't say 'Morrissey this, such-and-such', I just wouldn't say his name," he told Channel 4's profile of the former Smiths front man.

4. Dry your hands properly. Apparently 1,000 times as many germs are spread from damp hands as from dry, according to food hygiene campaigners. But 76% of teenagers said they dried their hands on their clothes if they were in a hurry. Still, why worry? 45% of post-toilet pre-lunch schoolkids don't wash their hands anyway.

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5. The Wombles, those fictional litter fascists of Wimbledon Common, look set to achieve living embodiment at last. Rubbish disposal firm Waste Recycling Group is facing a £315m takeover bid by financier Guy Hands, through his new company Cholet Acquisitions. Cholet? The firm's name is a tribute to Madame Cholet, that pinnie-clad Wombling blow-in from across the Channel.

6. Charles Saatchi, the hero of young British artists and Nigella Lawson's new partner, was born in Baghdad. His family came to London during an exodus of Iraqi Jews after the end of WWII. Alan Yentob's affectionate portrait of Saatchi for BBC One's Imagine... programme revealed he liked watching Kerrang! TV and gangsta rap videos.

SEVEN DAYS

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7. There's a brand of sake in Japan named after Suzi Quattro, the tousle-haired rocker and one-time Happy Days star told BBC 6 Music.

8. What happens to currencies that no-one wants? The answer is they get melted down and turned into washing machines, car wheels, copper cable and... more coins. Scrap metal merchants across Europe, who are still munching their way through all the former Euro-land coins, are eyeing up our lovely pound coins already, the Guardian's Life supplement says.

9. Who sponsored Tony Blair's spokesman Alastair Campbell to run the London Marathon? Have I Got News For You had a quick run-down, but here are those names again: George Bush, Tony Blair, Peter Mandelson, Greg Dyke, Rebekah Wade, Piers Morgan, Delia Smith, Nigella Lawson, Ken Hom, Anne Robinson, William Hague, John Sergeant, Jimmy Savile, Richard Desmond and Richard Littlejohn.

10. Mobiles are being banned from swimming pools across Australia because of fears that camera phones are being used to take sneaky pics of people in their Speedos. Other places where similar rules have been introduced are Japan, Saudi Arabia, and some parts of Northern Ireland.

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