Weird and pointless stuff.

My sister has just rung me to say that if the population of China were to walk past you one at a time, the line would NEVER END because the population is expanding so rapidly. This is a random fact. I'm not sure what I am supposed to do with it? Should I be happy to know this? horrified? Impressed that the chinese babies can apparently learn to walk so quickly?

Who works this stuff out though, and why? Seriously, could they not be doing better things with their time - like solving world poverty, working out how to make ladder proof tights or how to stop cats from succumbing to their inner thief?

So, having inflicted you with my sister's random factoid, here are some other odd things that I know and which are of no use to man or beast:

* The Spanish mined so much silver in Bolivia in the 19th century that they could have built a bridge of silver between South America and Spain and walked over it carrying more silver and probably wearing silver clothes.

* A chameleon's tongue is twice the length of its body.

* Carnivorous animals won't eat another animal that has been struck by lightning.

* The phrase 'rule of thumb' comes from an old english law that says you can't beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb.

* Chimpanzees can recognise themselves in a mirror, but monkeys can't.

* Women blink nearly twice as much as men.

* Oscar Wilde's last words were "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do"

* Cockroaches can live for NINE DAYS after their head has been cut off.

There, that should do for now.