Steve Wright’s Further Factoids

The avocado has the most calories of any fruit.

The actress Jill Halfpenny began her TV acting career on Byker Grove. She was Jill Farthing back then.

If each of the UK’s ten million office workers used one less staple a day, 120 tonnes of steel would be saved every year.

Australia’s victory over England in The Ashes in 2006 was the first whitewash since 1921. The Wizards of Oz.

A woman who won £688,260 with a £2 accumulator flutter on the horses picked the winners with birth dates.

From EastEnders, the name Walford is a mix of Walthamstow and Stratford.

Council bosses in Swindon, Wiltshire, have responded to huge public demand by publishing a picture postcard of a roundabout near the town. The so-called Magic Roundabout already has t-shirts and keyrings dedicated to it.

The top best-selling book of all time is the Bible, which has been printed in more than 2,000 languages and has sold over six billion copies.Not been mentioned in Richard and Judy’s Book Club yet, though.

The chance of a woman having twins has doubled since World War Two.

According to the World Health Organisation, there are approximately 100 million acts of sexual intercourse each day. Way too much information!

The children’s television show Tiswas stood for Today is Saturday, Wear a Smile.

“Cabbaged” and “fabaceae” are the longest words that can be played on a musical instrument.

And fickleheaded and fiddledeedee are the longest words consisting only of letters in the first half of the alphabet.

Movie star Kate Winslet and “olde tyme” comedian Norman Wisdom have something in common–they’ve both appeared in the TV show Casualty.

The New Zealand basketball team are known as The Tall Blacks.

The first female to circumnavigate (sounds painful) the globe was Krystyna Choynowska-Liskievicz. That’s easy for you to say.

TV star Oprah Winfrey’s parents wanted to use the biblical name Orpah, but the midwife couldn’t spell so it became Oprah.

A survey of the quietest tow in Britain found Torquay is 100 times less noisy than Newcastle upon Tyne.

We produce enough waste in two hours to fill London’s Albert Hall.But why should we want to do that? Wouldn’t it get in Eric Clapton’s way?

Eighty-two per cent of speeding offences are committed by a man. And he should stop it immediately.

Liverpool player Peter Crouch wore a shirt with 12 on the back and 21 on the front in England’s football friendly with Uruguay.

Because Peter is wacky.

Dramatic changes in our climate mean we could lose the four seasons. And they were a damn good group. “Big Girls Don’t Cry”…

Lacrosse is the fastest growing sport in the USA. Apart from eating.

The final episode ofM*A*S*Hattracted a record TV audience of more than 109 million.

The Test cricketer of the 20th century, according to a panel of 100 cricketers and experts, was Sir Donald Bradman.

The hit “Wooden Heart” is adapted from the German folk song “Muss I Denn”.We’ll have to ask Elvis about that. Thangu vey much.

CONFIRMED–THE EGG CAME FIRST SHOCKER.

Heroes & villains section (#u88d839cb-6194-50f3-a2fd-c5eddb82a25c)

Disgraced President Richard Nixon was so worried about his grades at Law School that he broke into his Dean’s office to find his results. He discovered he was top of the class.

Winston Churchill’s family motto was “Fiel Pero Desdichado”, meaning “Faithful But Unfortunate”.

Notorious villain Attila the Hun died of a nosebleed on his wedding night because he was too drunk to notice his nose was bleeding.

Some Argentine fans are so in awe of “Hand of God” football villain Diego Maradona they worship him as a god, with their own “Maradonian” religion. This involves following “ten commandments”–one of which is to call your son Diego.

Russian dictator Joseph Stalin’s face was left badly scarred by smallpox, which he suffered from as a child. He later had photographs retouched to make his pockmarks less noticeable.

Muhammad Ali learned to box after his bike was stolen while he and a friend were at the Columbia Auditorium. The then young Cassius Clay found a policeman in a gym and told him he was going to “whup” whoever stole his bike. The policeman told him, “You better learn to box first.” So he did, and the rest is history.

A recent survey voted Jack the Ripper the worst Briton of the last 1,000 years.

Serial killer Charles Manson recorded an album calledLiein an effort to spread his beliefs.

Rowing hero Steve Redgrave won an Olympic Gold medal by a margin of just 0.38 seconds.

Although known during his life, and in history, as a tyrant, before his death Ivan the Terrible was actually re-christened as the monk Jonah and buried in his monk’s habit.

Mother Theresa was born Agnes Bojaxhiu. After taking her first vows as a nun, she chose the name Theresa after the patron saint of missionaries.

Adolf Hitler left school with no qualifications.

Gangster Al Capone was the only real person to appear as a character in The Adventures of Tintin series of comic books.

Superman’s alter ego, Clark Kent, was named after American actors Clark Gable and Kent Taylor.

The name of James Bond villain Blofeld was inspired by the English cricket commentator Henry Blofeld’s father, with whom Bond creator Ian Fleming went to school. Look out, he’s got a dangerous cat, but he’s out for a duck.

Meanwhile, James Bond himself was named after an American ornithologist, a Caribbean bird expert who was the author of the definitive guide book Birds of the West Indies.

The flashing lights on the originalDoctor WhoDaleks were indicator lights from an old Morris 1100.

The person who does the housework at home walks an average of 7,000 miles in their lifetime doing the vacuuming.

Sucking blowing blowing sucking blowing blowing sucking sucking blowing sucking…

Ikea gave all its 9,000 staff a bicycle as its contribution to tackling global warming. Bet they were worried when they got letters telling them to get on their bikes.

“Rugged” is a two-syllable word that can be made one syllable by adding letters to it to make the word “shrugged”.