Fascinating Facts and Trivia

A cockroach can live for nine days without its head before it starves to death?

The original formula for 7UP contained lithium citrate, a chemical used today as a treatment for bipolar disorders.

The ingredient was removed by 1950.

Polar bears are nearly undetectable by infrared cameras

Thermal cameras detect the heat lost by a subject as infrared, but polar bears are experts at conserving heat.

The bears keep warm due to a thick layer of blubber under the skin.

Add to this a dense fur coat and they can endure the chilliest Arctic day.

For every 230 cars that are made, 1 will be stolen.

Jimmy Carter was the first U.S. President to be born in a hospital.

Lightning strikes the earth about 8 million times a day.

Humans use a total of 72 different muscles in speech.

If you feed a seagull Alka-Seltzer, its stomach will explode.

Only female mosquitoes bite.

The TV remote is the dirtiest item in a typical household, hospital or hotel room

I thought I saw something that said that mobile phone screens or an iPad screens has more germs than a toilet seat? Someone pass the wet-wipes!

Here is an example of an actor not quite paying attention. Mike Pratt(Jeff Randall on Randall and Hopkirk:Deceased) was in a play and was concentrating so much on rolling a cigarette in paper he completely forgot to speak.

In another example of not being able to get your tongue wrapped around a sentence, an actor(can't remember his name) in Dixon of Dock Green, a very popular police series of the 1960's(Starring Jack Warner) had the simple line " he's being held down Dock Green nick" but unfortunately he kept saying "Dick Green Dock"

In one of those outtake programmes that Denis Norden used to do he showed a clip of an Amercian war film where you see the pilot of a plane flying through the clouds-a shadow appears to his side and you hear the director yell out "Hey! Who the hell is walking across the sky.?"

I've heard that 'Dick Green Dock' story before but I couldn't tell you who the actor is either. I'd guessed it might have been Peter Byrne who played Andy Crawford but I can't prove it.
It must have been recounted in a documentatary.
Mike Pratt is the father of Guy Pratt, he of The Pink Floyd.

It was Victor Maddern.

Brilliant! loved that when I first saw that and yes and it was the programme that Terry Wogan did Auntie's Bloomers. Victor Maddern was known for his hard characters but he was also played the son of Dick Emery in several episodes of the comedy series.

Did you know that if you wanted to pull an Italian Job-style gold heist on the Bank of England(and there's never been a robbery there since 1694 when it was first opened) it is estimated you would need 4,000 Mini's to cart it all away(didn't say whether it was the old one or the new one, which is bigger in boot size)

During the War all the gold in England was moved to Canada and the area was turned into a canteen and had beds in there for sleeping as an air-raid shelter. It is the second biggest depository of gold in the world, the largest is the Federal Bank of New York - not Fort Knox which is completely different and not a bank. At today's prices ONE bar of gold is about £436,000 (Source: BBC News)