10 things we didn't know this time last week

10 THINGS

10 euros - by Andy Crosbie

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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. Postman Pat was originally Postman Jim - at least that was the name of the postmaster at Beast Banks Post Office in the Lake District, on which the animated children's character was based. John Cunliffe, the creator of Postman Pat, recalled his inspiration for the long running series this week, to mark the closure of Beast Banks Post Office because of lack of business.

2. Humphrey Lyttleton, host of Radio 4's I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, was Lord Carrington's fag at Eton, he revealed on this week's episode of the quiz. (International readers may be excused confusion at this item. Fag in this context means, according to the OED, a junior schoolboy who runs errands for a senior.)

Farewell to another rural post office

3. Prince William is a member of the Kazaa generation. Visiting a centre for the homeless this week, the prince told resident Darryl Williams that he gets music from the internet. "He said it was because he was too lazy to go out and get CDs."

4. Meanwhile, homeless people in Seattle are being used as human billboards for a pizza restaurant. The sign they hold reads: "Pizza Schmizza paid me to hold this sign instead of asking for money," and they are paid in pizza, soft drinks, and a few dollars.

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5. A 13-year-old boy in India has been producing winged beetles in his urine after the insects hatched inside his body. The beetles are about half a centimetre long and belong to the Staphylinidae rove family, doctors said.

6. Most Norwegians are born out of wedlock. For the first time, more than half the children born in the country were born to unmarried parents - 50.7% compared to about 10% in the 1970s, the Oslo-based Aftenposten newspaper reports.

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7. More than one in four Britons have been sent home from work for being under-dressed, a survey for Cahoot has found. Most common breaches of protocol included: skirts being too short; tops showing too much cleavage or tummy; and just general levels of scruffiness.

8. The word tabloid came into to being as a trademark for drug company Burroughs, Wellcome and Co in 1884. Gradually it started to mean "small tablet", but was later applied to anything that was small in format. By 1901 the phrase "tabloid journalism" was used, but the word did not apply solely to newspapers - in WWI a small Sopwith biplane was described as tabloid. And so the first use of the word tabloid as a noun in its modern sense was recorded.

9. If you've got four stomachs it's only fair you should pay for the pollution you cause. That's the logic behind a move in New Zealand to tax the nation's cows for the methane they pump out into the otherwise pure air. The proposed flatulence tax is expected to raise NZ$8.4m a year ($4.9m) from next year.

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10. Cat-loving cinema goers can be bad for your health. Researchers in Brussels found that asthma sufferers could have attacks triggered by high levels of allergens brought in by cat-owners on their clothes and left on the seats. If that's not bad enough, the offending enzyme, Fel D1, comes from cats' guts, and is only present on the fur (and clothes and ultimately cinema seats) because of the way cats lick themselves. Enjoy the movie.

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