Fascinating Facts and Trivia

It is thought that is because some people have to go back to work(having booked time off over Christmas/New Year for holidays) and some receive their bills for credit cards used at Christmas. Also called Gloomy Monday.

Whoo! 2000 posts on this thread-thanks to EVERYONE who had contributed to this thread.

Andorra, a tiny country between France & Spain, has the longest average lifespan: 83.49 years.

Mr. Rogers was an ordained Presbyterian minister. (this apparently was a well known children's presenter in the US-played by Tom Hanks in a recent film Mr Roger's A Beautiful Day In the Neighborhood)

In America you will see an average of 500 advertisements a day.

John Lennon’s first girlfriend was named Thelma Pickles.

You can lead a cow upstairs but not downstairs.

The average person falls asleep in seven minutes.

The tongue of a mature blue whale has approximately the same mass as that of an entire elephant.

If you are in a room of 23 people, it is more likely than not that at least two people will share the same birthday.

In a room of of 35 people, the probability of at least two people sharing the same birthday is approximately 85%.

The minuet and trio of Haydn's Symphony No 47 in G (1772) is a musical palindrome; the whole movement sounds exactly the same whether played backwards or forwards.

If you shuffle a pack of 52 cards by dividing it exactly in half and perfectly interlacing one card at a time from alternate halves, so that the top card remains at the top and the bottom cards remains at the bottom (known as an "out-shuffle"), the deck will return to its original order after 8 shuffles.

This trick is used by skilled magicians and card sharks

I've found my successor to this thread billyboy1963 - I am sure when I eventually leave you will keep this incredible thread going along with others.

Comic actor David Jason was actually chosen to play the role of Lance-Corporal Jones in Dad's Army but hours later he lost out to Clive Dunn who specialised in playing old men. Jason also could have been a member of the Monty Python Team as he had started in the children's show Do Not Adjust Your Set with Michael Palin, Terry Jones and Eric Idle, who went on to form the team.