Some things I didn't know this time last year...

I like lists. There's a list on the BBC website of 100 things we didn't know this time last year.

Here are some of my favourites from the list:

3. While it's an offence to drop litter on the pavement, it's not an offence to throw it over someone's garden wall.
9. The energy used to build an average Victorian terrace house would be enough to send a car round the Earth five times, says English Heritage. [Why do we knock them down then and not just renovate?]
11. One in 10 Europeans is allegedly conceived in an Ikea bed. [Ha ha ha! Sweden is taking over the world...]
12. Until the 1940s rhubarb was considered a vegetable. It became a fruit when US customs officials, baffled by the foreign food, decided it should be classified according to the way it was eaten. [I disagree with the current classification then! Rhubarb should be a vegetable, like a tomato is a fruit... I thought it was classified according to seeds and pips, or not.]
14. It's possible for a human to blow up balloons via the ear. A 55-year-old factory worker from China reportedly discovered 20 years ago that air leaked from his ears, and he can now inflate balloons and blow out candles. [How do you discover that?!]
18. If all the Smarties eaten in one year were laid end to end it would equal almost 63,380 miles, more than two-and-a-half times around the Earth's equator. [Mmmm, Smarties! Shame they got rid of the tubes. I used to collect the lids with the letters on.]
34. The Little Britain wheelchair sketch with Lou and Andy was inspired by Lou Reed and Andy Warhol. [Random.]
35. The name Lego came from two Danish words "leg godt", meaning "play well". It also means "I put together" in Latin. [Clever! Apparently the word for 'Volvo' - another Swedish brand as my friend Christina tells me - comes from the Latin meaning 'I roll'. So there.]
36. The average employee spends 14 working days a year on personal e-mails, phone calls and web browsing, outside official breaks, according to employment analysts Captor. [Oops, I am definitely one of them!]
38. Nasa boss Michael Griffin has seven university degrees: a bachelor's degree, a PhD, and five masters degrees. [That's just ridiculous.]
53. It takes 75kg of raw materials to make a mobile phone. [Obscene.]
59. Oliver Twist is very popular in China, where its title is translated as Foggy City Orphan. [Tee hee!]
63. It takes less energy to import a tomato from Spain than to grow them in this country because of the artificial heat needed, according to Defra. [So many moral dilemmas in the modern world.]
68. The Very Hungry Caterpillar has sold one copy every minute since its 1969 publication. [Maybe my children's book will too!! Ha ha ha.]
78. One in 18 people has a third nipple. [Have you ever met a person with a third nipple? The probability is that I have now!]
81. George Bernard Shaw named his shed after the UK capital so that when visitors called they could be told he was away in London. [Like the pub called 'Walk the dog'...]
100. Musical instrument shops must pay an annual royalty to cover shoppers who perform a recognisable riff before they buy, thereby making a "public performance". [I definitely didn't know that!]

So there you go!