Just a few wee tales from old London town. 

Here are some facts about the 1500s:

Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May and still smelled pretty good by June. However, they were starting to smell so brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor.

Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children-last of all the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it-hence the saying, "Don't throw the baby out with the bath water."

Houses had thatched roofs - thick straw - piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the dogs, cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof, hence the saying "It's raining cats and dogs."

There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could really mess up your nice clean bed. Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection. That's how canopy beds came into existence.

The houses of poor people had floors of dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt, hence the saying "dirt poor." The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on the floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on, they kept adding more thresh until when you opened the door it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entranceway - hence, a "thresh hold."

In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes the stew had food in it that had been there for quite a while - hence the rhyme, "peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old."

Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show off. It was a sign of wealth that a man "could bring home the bacon." They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around and "chew the fat."

Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with a high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning and death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous. Most people did not have pewter plates, but had trenchers, a piece of wood with the middle scooped out like a bowl. Often trenchers were made from stale bread which was so old and hard that they could be used for quite some time. Trenchers were never washed and a lot of times worms and mold got into the wood and old bread. After eating off wormy, moldy
trenchers, one would get "trench mouth."

Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or "upper crust."

Lead cups were used to drink ale or whiskey. The combination would sometimes knock them out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road
would take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up - hence the custom of holding a "wake."

England is old and small and the local folks started running out of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a "bone-house" and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive. So they thought they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone
would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the "graveyard shift") to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be "saved by the bell" or was considered a "dead ringer".

And that's the truth...(and whoever said that history was boring?!)

And some more!

Americans eats seven hectares of pizza a day

Last year (2000), 43 Pommie adults died in their bath tubs.

When the Cassini space probe hurtled around the earth on it's way to Saturn, our planet lost enough of it's momentum through space to lengthen the year by one million millionth of a second.

The giant sloth sleeps 17 hours of a day, but only dreams for 10 minutes of that time.

There is an average of 915 meters of electrical wiring in every car.

During the battle for Stalingrad in WWII, the German army lost more men attacking a single house defended by Sgt Pavlov's platoon than it did occupying Paris 3 years earlier. Sgt Pavlov survived the war and became a monk.

The catfish has 27000 taste buds

The worlds' largest body of fresh water, Lake Superior in Canada, contains 4 723 cubic kilometers of water.

The liberal use of morphine  for pain relief during the American Civil war turned more than 400 000 soldiers into addicts.

There are more than 3 000 000 ship wrecks on the ocean floor.

The United Nations predict that the world will run out of fresh water in 2050.

The Argentine duck as a  whopping 16 inch penis.

A lump of gold the size of a match box can be flattened into a sheet the size of a tennis court.

Unsterilised, used needles give 8 billion injections worldwide every year.

The daily heat output of the average man can boil 30 liters of freezing water.

An airbag reaches a speed of up to 7 240kph in less than a second when triggered, generating a force of 200 G's.

Due to pollution  levels in the festering Tube system in England, traveling on a London Underground train for 40 minutes is as bad for you as smoking two cigarettes.

A pound of Bill Gates' flesh is worth more than 98% of the 4 799 companies on the Bombay Stock Exchange.

A mature oak tree sheds around 700 000 leaves every autumn.

There are 17 species of walnuts.

In 400BC, the Greek city of Sparta was made up of about 25 000 citizens - and around 500 000 slaves.

By the end of the US Civil War, one in three banknotes in circulation was counterfeit.

The Hawaiian alphabet consists of just 12 letters.

Every 24 hours, the human body grows a total of 40 meters of hair.

The typical amount of actual playing time in an average two-and-a-half hour American Major League baseball game is just 9 minutes and 55 seconds.

The average elephant's' trunk can hold more than 18 liters of water.

Italians consume  as much coffee every two days as the Brits do in a year.

More bullets were fired off during the running time of Paul Verhoevens' Starship Troopers than in any other movie.

There are more plastic flamingoes in the United States than there are real ones.

A recent survey (another one, don't you just love these?) found that 20% of the public seats in the United Kingdom had bacteria counts of more than 1000 bugs per square centimeter, while 23% of lavatory door handles carry breeding populations of faecal organisms.

The duration of 9 192 631 770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the cesium 133 atom, is the official definition of a second.

Temperature variables at Verkhoyansk, Siberia are the greatest in the world, ranging between  frosty -68 degcels in winter and a steaming 37 degcels in summer.

Of the 17 US dotcoms which took out TV ads during the 1999 Super bowl final (the most expensive ad space in the world), only 3 were still in business in 2000.

A female flea has to suck up to 15 times her own body weight in blood every day.

Americans spend $5 billion a year on dog food, which pooches duly deposit on the streets as 2 000 000 tons of "landmines".

It takes a rattle snake 17 days to digest a mouse.

If a doctor retires at 60, he or she will, on average, live to be 72. Retire at 65 however, and they'll be six feet under at 69. (I'd like to know how the hell they figured that one out!-any suggestions ?)

The Great Fire of London in 1666 razed half the capital, but injured only 6 people.

One  in 8 American workers have, at some point in their careers, toiled under McDonald's' golden arches.

A cup of coffee contains 2 000 chemicals - only 27 have been tested for carcinogens. (what's a carcinogen?)

Your skin weighs twice as much as your brains does.

Dairy cows can produce up to 56kg's of saliva a day.

While 11% percent of the world's population own a bible, 21 percent have a Beatle's album in their possession.

Since DNS evidence became legally acceptable, 75 US death row prisoners have been cleared of the crimes they were sentenced for.

The average person will walk 104 605km's in their lifetime.

Apollo 14 astronaut, Alan Shepard holds the record for the longest golf drive ever of 731meters. He was on the moon at the time.

More than 100 woman make a living by impersonating Marilyn Monroe.

You can write more than 50 000 words with a single pencil.

A human tooth contains 89km's on canals.

Taking into account all the vessels it owns - canoes, riverboats and so on - the Disney World Corporation has the fourth biggest navy on earth.

There are more guns in Switzerland (8 000 000) than there are people (7 500 000).

If our solar system was the width of a coffee cup, our galaxy - the Milky Way - would be a disc the size of North America.

And if the Milky Way was shrunk down to size of that same coffee cup, the known universe would be a sphere 96km's from edge to edge.

Your eyes muscles move up to 150 000 times a day.

Almost a quarter of the land area of Los Angeles is dedicated for the use by the motor car.

Insects consume over 10% of the world's food supply every year.

Your teeth are 5% water.

A chameleons' tongue is twice the length of it's body.

A female silkworm exudes pheromones at 4 billionth of an ounce per second - enough to excite every male silkworm within 1 and a half kilometers.

Pieces of rare lunar meteorite sell for R230 000 a gram - 3000 times the price of gold.

Just a single cup of espresso requires 24 000 grains of coffee.

Bacteria spores can survive, dormant, for 20 million years. Living examples at between 113 and - 15 degcels, and at depths of up to 3,5km's below the earth's surface.

The worlds largest collection of preserved human brains is maintained beneath the UK Runwell Psychiatric Hospital in Essex - all 8000 of them.

US factories produce over 0 000 tons of foam used for packaging chips every year.

Left undisturbed, a detached porcupine quill will work it's way in to human flesh at a rate of 2,5 cm's a day, as confirmed by a zoologist, who allowed a spike to tunnel clear though his leg. (wonder if it wasn't his bloody brain?)

Thee world's widest highway is the Monumental Axis in the Brazilian capital, Brasilia, 160 cars can drive side by side.

Using a cell phone in your car increases chance of crashing by 4, the same amount as driving when your pissed. (no comment!)

EU bureaucrats get through 1,5 billion sheets of paper a year. That's 15 ton - or 270 sheets per person - every working day.

Humans can catch 65 different diseases from dogs.

The largest private company in the world is the Indian railway system, which now employs 1 600 000 people.

Every year, about a dozen swimmers are killed by sharks. In return, we bump off  100 000 000 of the chompers.

World War II was the first conflict were a soldier had more chance of being killed in combat than by disease. In the US Civil War for instance, seven soldiers died in hospital for every one on the battlefield.

The world's 358 richest individuals own as much loot as the poorest three billion.

If two flies were able to reproduce with predators or environmental restraints for a year, the resulting mass of insects would bet the size of the earth.

There are 750 000 000 people in the world whose first language is English, the same again claim it as their second, and a billion re busy learning it right now.

About 90percent of the brain contains fat.

The most powerful Yakuza - gangster - in Japan is Kobe boss Yoshinori Watanabe, he commands 38 000 men.

A diving whale's heart pumps at three beats a minute. The human heart by contrast pumps at 65 to 80 beats a minute.

Yanks spend more cash at strip clubs than at opera, classical concerts, ballet, jazz and the theatre combined.

The  hair on the human head grows the longest of any animal on the planet - up to 4 meters.

It takes 15 months of instruction at the Pentagon's School of Music to turn out a military bandleader, that's compared with the 13 months it takes to train a jet pilot.

The air in a fully pressurized 747 Jumbo jet adds a ton to the plane's weight.

Every year, 11 000 yanks injure themselves while trying bizarre sexual positions.

The volume of water in all the lakes in the world is around 3 220 cubed kilometers, all the water in the oceans is around 521 413 000 cubed kilometers.

Camels have three eyelids on each eye.

Tuna swim at a constant 14,5kph - which means a 15 year old fish would have travel 1 609 311 km's in it's lifetime.

When it flew, the Concorde needed 14 hours of maintenance for every hour it spent in the air.

Man's sole contribution to procreation is his DNA in the nucleus of a single sperm, all 3 million-millionth of a gram of it.

Due to the vast distances involved, astronomers measure in light years. Light travels at 300 000km's a second, so one light year equals 9,46 million million kilometers.

The polite and friendly Brits send each other 2,8 billion cards a year 0 65% of them at Christmas.

The world uses 74 million barrels of oil a day, one quarter of that  is used by the US alone.

In bars, woolen or cotton clothing gains 1% in weight from cigarette smoke.

There are 7 000 different species of rice.

The highest grossing horror film ever was The Sixth Sense which earned $670 000 000 worldwide by April 2000.

Experts estimate the 50 plant species become extinct every day.

South Koreans butcher around 1 000 000 dogs a year for food.

During the Gulf War, the Allies lost 4 tanks out of the 3 360 deployed, the Iraqis lost 4 000 out of  4 230 deployed.

93% percent of American's don't even own a passport.

Indian restaurants in the UK now employ more people than Britain's mining, steel making and shipbuilding industries combined.

An estimated 100 000 000 birds die each year by flying into manmade structures.

In the past 50years, the working vocabulary of a 15 year old has decreased from 25 000 words to just 10 000.

You're likely to spend 80 000 hours of your lifetime at work. 12% of your total lifespan.

Nuclear scientists have been creating antimatter in a lab for 20 years. Weighted together, the total produced would be less than a millionth of a gram.

There are more slaves in the world today - 20 000 000 - than existed at any other time in history.

Of the 2 332 allied pilots to fly for their country in the battle of Britain, just 17 of them accounted for 10% of all enemy losses,.

The worlds population gulps down about 80 billion aspirin tablets a year.

Since the seventies, microchips have doubled in power and halved in price every 2 years. If cars were the same, then a Rolls-Royce would do 35 000km's to the liter and cost R400.

The sperm is a the tiniest cell in the human body, while the egg is the largest. Five hundred million sperm are released in a single ejaculation. Only few hundred will make it as far as the Fallopian tubes and a few dozen will complete their journey.

By the time we reach our teenage years, we've heard the greatest range of sound we will ever hear for the rest of our lives.

Winnie the Pooh and his friends are now more valuable to the Disney Corporation than Mickey Mouse, being responsible for annual revenue of $4,5 Billion.

As much as ten percent of Britain's perfume is bought at Heathrow Airport.

Male fruit bats have the highest incidence of homosexuality in the animal kingdom - including humans.

A baby's heart will have beaten around 60 million times before it's born

Every American consumes the resources of 9,7 hectares of land and shallow sea. If everyone on the planet ate, drank and mined the same area, we would need another 4 earths.

The record for the longest ever tennis rally was set two years ago in San Diego. It lasted for 15 674 strokes.