10 things we didn't know this time last week

10 THINGS

Photo by reader Jeremy Harrison

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. Tony Blair prides himself on his warm friendships with US presidents past and present. And in the run-up to war, his Cabinet buddied up with their American counterparts to boost the UK's influence in Washington. But the two defence secretaries, Donald Rumsfeld and Geoff Hoon, took time to warm to each other. "It was like getting two pandas to mate," a British official recalled to the Guardian.

2. Lembit Opik, the MP once dubbed the human anagram, who is much exercised by the threat of meteorites, is going out with Sian Lloyd, the weather forecaster who is currently in ITV's jungle. His moral dilemma of the week? Hang around in Wales to help the Lib Dems in the Welsh assembly elections or nip off to Australia to support Sian. Politics was the winner.

3. Penis enlargement was never promoted so easily. Amid calls from Microsoft and AOL for new US legislation to tackle spam, the Economist points out just how cheap it is for spammers to do their devilish business. CDs with a million e-mail addresses cost just $5. And if just one person in 100,000 is interested, then the whole thing has been worthwhile. Normal junk mail needs a return of about one in 100.

4. The Celtic fringe extends to the Czech republic. About 2,500 years ago there was a movement of people from Ireland to eastern Europe. That heritage is now being celebrated by, among others, a cross-over folk group called Czeltic.

Her letters have gone on display at the National Maritime Museum

5. When Elizabeth I wrote to her suitors, she used a secret love code of Old French sprinkled with Greek and Roman letters. That code has been broken by a retired crossword compiler and a cryptographer from British intelligence, who worked out that each Roman, Greek and nonsense letter has an equivalent in the conventional alphabet, for instance pi equals e.

6. Iran and China are among the first countries to crack down on bloggers. Last November Lui Di was arrested for posting criticism of the government's restrictions on net use. She has yet to be released. And last month, Iranian police detained Sina Motallebi, a prominent blogger, a move which has instilled fear in the country's estimated 10,000 other internet diarists.

Full story

7. For a painting to be stolen once - as three watercolours were from a Manchester gallery last weekend - is unfortunate. To be snatched twice is carelessness. But four times, as the world's most stolen painting - Jacob III de Gheyn, aka the "takeaway Rembrandt" - has been in the past 35 years? Perhaps it is, in fact, a neat security trick - the portrait is now so well known in the art world that it would be almost impossible to sell on illegally.

8. Is the chameleon-like Ivan Massow - fox-hunter, champion of contemporary arts, "pink pound" millionaire, and former turncoat MP - set to be the new Ken Livingstone? Mr Massow is widely tipped to stand as an independent in next year's mayoral contest. He will no doubt aim to be a thorn in the government's side, having spent the week talking up the idea of London taxes for London projects, instead of spending £10bn of the city's tax revenues in Scotland.

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

9. The chefs at La Tour d'Argent have cooked 999,999 roast ducks since the famed Parisian restaurant began recording each serving of the house speciality in 1890. The Queen ate the 185,397th serving of canard au sang (literally "duck in blood") in 1948. Mick Jagger tucked into number 531,147. The former New York mayor Rudolf Giuliani recently feasted on number 971,612. And on Tuesday evening, the millionth duck waddled free to mark the occasion.

10. Where might one go for dinner once one has tired of canard au sang? Why, a small market town in the Midlands, of course. The seven-table Merchant House in Ludlow is ranked amongst the world's finest restaurants, ranking 14th in Restaurant Magazine's survey of international gastronomic gems. Rack of lamb followed by rhubarb tart, anyone?

Full story

---

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