FACT #161

Tord Grip takes all his scout reports from Football Manager 2005.

FACT #160

It is impossible to fold a piece of paper more than twice.

FACT #159

The classic Two Ronnies' 'Fork Handles' sketch was based on a real-life exchange at a Texas Homecare branch in Bradford. The store's assistant supervisor was later found stabbed to death with an Allan Key.

FACT #158

The first MTV Cribs featured Joe Longthorne's Blackpool box-flat.

FACT #157

The only country in which 7Up still use Fido Dido as a figurehead is Austria. He is known there as Jochen von Hundertbacker.

FACT #156

Labour's 1983 election manifesto was written on an Etch-a-Sketch.

FACT #155

England fans chanted 'Tyco' at defender Stuart Pearce in honour of the limited-edition England football team Beany Babies.

FACT #154

ITV has buried 30,000 unsold monkey toys in the Nevada desert.

FACT #153

Residents in the American town of Up Jack's Arse have voted against a proposal to change its name three times.

FACT #152

In the original version of Cluedo, Colonel Mustard was called Lieutenant Puce.

FACT #151

Paula Radcliffe was conceived on top of a washing machine.

FACT #150

Paint only officially became an element of the periodic table in 1959. Its atomic number is 104 and its chemical symbol PT.

FACT #149

Putting the number 382743846 into a calculator and turning it upside down spells out the word 'FORTITUDE'.

FACT #148

World War I poet Wilfred Owen served as a second lieutenant with The Manchester Regiment from 1914-15 and 1917-18. During 1916 he took a gap year and went Inter-railing.

FACT #147

The Swahili word 'n'chinga-n'chinga' translates into English as "A man who values soot above his own brother."

FACT #146

Traffic police are told never to arrest speeding drivers in a
motorway's slow lane through fear of creating an oxymoron.

FACT #145

CAMRA's pub of the year 2004 was The Louchie Lou & Michie One in Hexham, Northumberland.

FACT #144

Following the succesful relaunches of the Independent and Guardian, the Daily Telegraph will relaunch in December in a form of a gas which, once the reader is exposed to it, fills his head with news and comment.

FACT #143

Lemurs can escape predators in the wild by throwing their voice.

FACT #142

On April 4 1994 Brazil announced a national Grandmother Amnesty, giving civilians 24 hours to hand in any stolen or illegal relatives without recrimination.

FACT #141

If every pin badge featuring boy band Take That were melted down, the resulting ingot would weigh slightly more than 1,650 tubs of the boys' favourite Brylcreem.

FACT #140

When Tony Blair and Gordon Brown met at Islington restaurant Granita to discuss a leadership deal, Brown took his own sandwiches.

FACT #139

Wherever you walk in London you're never more than 10 metres from a Vermicious Knid.

FACT #138

Consonants were not introduced to the English language until 1910. Were this website to have been around 100 years ago, it would have been called 'ue a a a'.

FACT #137

Plans to mark ITV's 50th anniversary by floating a 50 foot effigy of Alan Whicker down the Thames were scrapped after Sir Trevor McDonald refused to play ball.

FACT #136

Grease was the only Alfred Hitchcock film in which he did not make a cameo appearance.

FACT #135

Despite being able to summon forth the power of 10 tigers, The Phantom was unable to perform even basic DIY tasks.

FACT #135

Andy Cunningham, who played Simon Bodger in 'Bodger and Badger', is allergic to mashed potato.

FACT #134

The chat-up line "I wanna sex you up" has only been used successfully once - in Ritzy's bar, Crawley.

FACT #132

Jay-Z's 99 problems include eczema and a neighbour's leylandii encroaching into his garden.

FACT #131

The world's most obscure colour is cram. The only place it can be seen in Europe is a bridge overlooking the A55 in North Wales.

FACT #130

Michael Parkinson still has no feeling in his right arm after being attacked by Emu.

FACT #129

Osama Bin Laden's hatred of America stems from Coca-Cola's withdrawal of his favourite drink, Tab Clear.

FACT #128

Wearing two Make Poverty History wristbands simultaneously decreases the debt by twice as much.

FACT #127

Radio 4's most complained-about show was a 2004 episode of The Archers when Eddie Grundy said "cripes".

FACT #126

Celebrity chef Rick Stein hosts illegal crab fights in the cellar of his Padstow restaurant.

FACT #125

There is only one recorded incident of a bull actually entering a chinashop, in Herford, Germany in 1981. It sniffed haughtily before lying down and falling asleep.

FACT #124

David Bowie's androgeny was the single biggest cause of a rise in blood pressure among middle-aged men in the 1970s.

FACT #123

Hugh Pollard, who played Simon in little-remembered TV series 'Simon and the Witch', is now British High Commissioner to Kenya. He is no longer in contact with Elizabeth Spriggs, who played the witch.

FACT #122

Pressing X,L,Y,Y,R,up,down,X fifteen times on the intro screen of Tekken 4 on the Playstation opens a secret zone allowing the player to fight as former SDP leader David Steel.

FACT #121

Hamsters can lip-read.

FACT #120

Marie Claire magazine was almost shut down in 1942 after publishing a double page feature on Adolf Hitler entitled 'Why we can't resist a bad boy'.

FACT #119

Brush Strokes star Karl Howman has the world's largest collection of Hello Kitty merchandise.

FACT #118

Ryman League side AFC Hornchurch tried to register Bobby Moore as a player for the start of the 2004-2005 season.

FACT #117

Former Militant leader Derek Hatton has dug a tunnel leading from his garden direct to Alton Towers.

FACT #116

Mr Men creator Roger Hargreaves invented the word 'uppity'.

FACT #115

The Strucko range from Ikea features a bedside cabinet made entirely of Dime bars.

FACT #114

In Liverpool, it is considered polite to continuously pat the taxi driver on the head during the journey.

FACT #113

All of the players in the 1953 FA Cup Final were called Matthew, hence its popular name 'The Matthews Final'.

FACT #112

Bernie Winters' dog Schnorbitz was a last-minute replacement for Ken Morley in the final episode of Celebrity Squares.

FACT #111

All new animals in Whipsnade Zoo have to take a written exam based on the David Bellamy I-Spy books.

FACT #110

The day after Judy Finnigan's bra-flash at the National TV Awards, Richard Madeley presented the entire episode of This Morning with his flies undone in an attempt to upstage her.

FACT #109

Vin Diesel got through 24 dialogue coaches on the set of The Pacifier.

FACT #108

Anyone falling sideways through a bar has to pay 75p in royalties to David Jason.

FACT #107

New Zealand's most popular band are called Leigh RMI.

FACT #106

Exactly 50% of all American films feature a cop removing his cap, rubbing his eyes and saying 'Well, I'll be darned'.

FACT #105

Home Office minister Caroline Flint was a member of girl group The Reynolds Girls. The hit 'I'd Rather Jack' was a reference to Jack Straw.

FACT #104

The best-selling gift on Firebox.com last Christmas was a dice bearing the faces of the Grumbleweeds.

FACT #103

In Brazil, after unexpectedly catching sight of one's own reflection in a shop window it is considered good luck to break the neck of the next animal you see.

FACT #102

Phil 'The Power' Taylor has a tattoo on his soul.

FACT #101

Following the death of Princess Diana, an 80-year-old woman from Aberystwyth bled to death after chopping off her toes to make a highly personal set of tribute pearls.

FACT #100

Prior to the introduction of sushi to Britain in 1991, it was common for people to go into chip shops and ask for the fish not to be cooked.

FACT #99

Stalin was an obsessive George Formby fan and used to insist on ending Politburo meetings with a rousing rendition of 'Chinese Laundry Blues'.

FACT #98

Pat Sharpe sells his sperm on eBay.

FACT #97

The Nottinghamshire town of Mansfield switched to Central European Time for a six-month experiment in 2002, but it gave the residents a headache.

FACT #96

The answers to the three most common pub quiz questions are (i) Tony Meola at the 1994 World Cup, (ii) Queensryche, and (iii) anal fissure.

FACT #95

Shakespeare's final words were "This isn't a ladle, it's a shoehorn".

FACT #94

When tested after this year's Tour de France Lance Armstrong's blood was found to contain traces of Jaffa Cakes.

FACT #93

During the Second World War, the Cabinet was made up by a system similar to jury service. Every member of the public was expected to serve a week as a minister.

FACT #92

The title of the Welsh national anthem roughly translates as "Roll me my hat".

FACT #91

August 13 is National Roxette Day in Sweden.

FACT #90

Max Clifford once offered to represent the infamous Richard Gere gerbil.

FACT #89

Paul Weller always demands plankton in his rider.

FACT #88

The longest-running West End musical is Zzap!64, based on the computer magazine of the same name. It has been going since 1987.

FACT #87

Whittling was an Olympic sport until 1976.

FACT #86

Ireland has a navy despite having no coast.

FACT #85

A recent study found that, when scientists gave one monkey one typewriter and one hour, it recreated the lifetime's work of Mirror columnist Sue Carroll.

FACT #84

'True Fact A Day' is the third-most commonly searched for phrase on Google after 'Sudoku Olympic Snub' and 'Jude's Tiddler'.

FACT #83

In October 2003 100 badgers protested outside the Newsnight studios after Jeremy Paxman disparagingly described them as "fat skunks".

FACT #82

In the event of a nuclear attack on Britain, tannoys on every street corner will play Dave Lee Travis' Radio One resignation speech.

FACT #81

Channel Five have bought the rights to Endemol's new prostitute makeover show How Clean is Your Whore?.

FACT #80

Eddie the dog on Frasier insisted on eight dressing rooms for the final series, two more than Kelsey Grammar.

FACT #79

The smell released when you open a packet of dry-roasted peanuts is a natural defence mechanism.

FACT #78

Keith Chegwin has been to every Little Chef restaurant twice except for the Monk's Heath branch in Cheshire, which refused to exchange his clean plate for a lollipop.

FACT #77

In the 1974 Braintree Masters Steve Davis embarassed himself by chalking his cue with a McDonalds barbecue dip. The incident led to his nickname 'the nugget'.

FACT #76

The smallest television ever made was a wristwatch for ants, designed by Sony technicians in 1995 to mark the first election of an ant to the Japanese parliament.

FACT #75

The dancing skeleton from the Scotch video advertisements is now used in biology classes at Oxford Brookes University.

FACT #74

Mickey Mouse was originally planned to be a weevil.

FACT #73

In preparation for his role in Gangs of New York Daniel Day-Lewis stopped himself from blinking for a year.

FACT #72

Simon Schama's luxury item when he appeared on Desert Island Discs was a robot goat.

FACT #71

There are actually only 56-and-a-half varieties of Heinz.

FACT #70

The most popular boy's name in Romania is Voldamort.

FACT #69

The heaviest fine ever handed out by the Advertising Standards Authority was to the Milk Board in 1997 for the misleading slogan 'Milk Cures Cancer'.

FACT #68

Stephen Hawking has never lost a game of Kerplunk.

FACT #67

Asked the first thing they'd rescue if their home caught fire, 74 percent of Americans said their George Foreman grill.

FACT #66

The best way to remove salt from a carpet is to pour red wine over it.

FACT #65

In Belgium the phrase 'Having a Werther's Original' means indulging in an obscure sexual practice.

FACT #64

Kofi Annan auditioned for the role of Malcolm in 1980s sitcom Watching.

FACT #63

At the height of the Three-Day Week in 1973, Edward Heath cancelled July.

FACT #62

Grimsby's unsuccesful bid to host the 2000 Olympics cost the seaside town £10m. It was described by one local councillor as "folly, with hindsight".

FACT #61

An American remake of Only Fools and Horses, which relocated the comedy to LA and featured Delboy as the successful black CEO of a major media organisation, was pulled from the schedules after just half an episode.

FACT #60

The computer game Tetris is based on a true story.

FACT #59

The new young hope of Brazilian football is 14-year-old Fluminese midfielder Steptoe.

FACT #58

Herbie Goes Kosher was the lowest-grossing of all the Love Bug films.

FACT #57

M-People frontwoman Heather Small's hair is so tall she has to sleep in a specially customised bed.

FACT #56

At the end of the cartoon Dungeons and Dragons the children finally made it back to the amusement park, where Hank the ranger was fleeced on the ring toss game.

FACT #55

A prawn cocktail appears on all Liechtenstein's stamps.

FACT #54

Dachshunds can be coached to GSCE level French using a combination of audio cassettes and Bonios.

FACT #53

The national anthem of the Turks and Caicos Islands has exactly the same tune as the mending song sung by the mice in Bagpuss.

FACT #52

Michaelangelo created David by getting a large block of marble and chopping off all the bits that didn't look like David.

FACT #51

An episode of the Antiques Roadshow had to be cancelled last year when a drunk Michael Aspel staggered around Folkestone community centre half-naked shouting: "Check this out, it's priceless!".

FACT #50

Boots' Meal Deal was inspired by the tale of the genie and the lamp.

FACT #49

In Uzbekistan Edward Woodward is a swearword.

FACT #48

Under new government licensing regulations, every pub in Britain must stock at least three packets of Scampi Fries.

FACT #47

'Informer' by Snow has been number one in the Estonian charts for the past 12 years. Its sales are thought to have boosted the country's economy by around a third.

FACT #46

The beer being drunk by actors in The Vic in Eastenders are actually pints of brandy.

FACT #45

In the original version of Guns and Roses' November Rain Slash's guitar solo lasts 7 hours 23 minutes.

FACT #44

1974 saw France make legal history when they successfully applied for a restraining order on Britain, forbidding the island from coming within a one hour timezone.

FACT #43

In a nod to his friend Steven Spielberg, George Lucas' Return of the Jedi features an ewok in an Amistad t-shirt.

FACT #42

It is illegal in Kentucky to impersonate a moustache.

FACT #41

To paint images as fast as they are shown on a cinema screen would require 50,000 David Hockneys, but experts believe they would get in each other's way.

FACT #40

An administrative error saw Peter Sutcliffe switch the Christmas lights on in Sheffield in 1993. Sheffield City Council later described the incident as "regrettable".

FACT #39

Alexander Graham Bell was the first person to use a telephone. The second, Eileen Douglas, dialled in from an NTL call centre in West Lothian.

FACT #38

Otters can out-stare any other animal.

FACT #37

The world's worst gameshow contestant is Roy van der Piik of The Netherlands, who was on Going for Gold 119 times between 1988 and 1992 without success. He later appeared on Cross Wits with Tom O'Connor.

FACT #36

Icelanders have 400 different words for tandem.

FACT #35

If every border collie across the globe barked simulataneously the resulting sound wave would destroy all seven wonders of the world.

FACT #34

Joe Pesci's parents were so scared of his performance in Goodfellas that they went into Witness Protection immediately after the premiere.

FACT #33

Sir Alex Ferguson has every single episode of Super Gran on DVD. David Beckham's refusal to watch one was the reason for the infamous 'flying boot' episode.

FACT #32

Rapper 50 Cent's father provided the voice of cartoon character Tweety Pie.

FACT #31

The only currency in the Vatican City is holiness.

FACT #30

Chorlton and the Wheelies was a documentary.

FACT #29

Even on his wildest nights Pete Doherty always gives his mum three rings.

FACT #28

The reason BBC's Ghostwatch has never been re-shown is because Sarah Greene didn't like her hair.

FACT #27

The phrase "you say tomato, I say tomatoe" has been responsible for 95 percent of all wars.

FACT #26

Wallace and Gromit creator Nick Park's bedroom is made entirely of plasticine.

FACT #25

The Kray twins were born two weeks premature - "out of respect".

FACT #24

BBC Sports Personality of the Year in 1950 was Tony Hancock.

FACT #23

By the age of retirement, the average British male will have seen 3,600 scenes on TV where a doctor pops his head around the corner and says 'next!'.

FACT #22

Cameroon's longest-running soap opera is People of the Day, a serial set in the townships of Yaounde. At the time of writing, it has been running for two weeks.

FACT #21

Wasps make mustard.

FACT #20

William Tell's favourite apple was the Pink Lady.

FACT #19

James Blunt was discharged from the army after he was heard singing 'You're Beautiful' after lights out.

FACT #18

The distinctive mooing sound given by Bully during cult TV quiz Bulleye was achieved by torturing a heifer behind the revolving prizeboard.

FACT #17

Chris Martin has written Make Trade Fair on his hand so many times he cannot get it off.

FACT #16

The so-called 'laugh' of a Hyena is actually a world-weary sob borne of frustration.

FACT #15

Niagara Falls was created by beavers.

FACT #14

The part of Vincent Vega in Pulp Fiction was originally offered to Todd Carty. He told TV Quick magazine: "It was the biggest mistake I ever made."

FACT #13

Furniture firm DFS' Double Discount Sale has been running since 1876. It was stopped for three days in 1944 as a mark of respect for those lost in the battlefields.

FACT #12

Sir Cliff Richard turned down a wild card for this year's Wimbledon tournament.

FACT #11

Hover flies are bees which have gone cold turkey from pollen.

FACT #10

The father of electricity, Benjamin Franklin, also invented the Atari Lynx.

FACT #9

The national flag of Andorra features a Rubik's Cube in honour of its inventor, Andorran-born Jose Rubik.

FACT #8

If you laid all of the clocks in the world end to end, they would reach until the end of time.

FACT #7

Ostriches can run at over 100mph, but they can't hide.

FACT #6

The word 'rainbow' is an acronym of the colours that make it up - Red, Amber, Indigo, No colour, Black, Olive, White.

FACT #5

Dogs see backwards.

FACT #4

Despite their massive popularity, The Beatles never actually set foot in Britain.

FACT #3

In 1992, voters in Alabama elected a whistle as governor following a mix-up with ballot papers. The mistake was not rectified for two years.

FACT #2

Wind is caused by clouds clapping. This is where the phrase 'cloud pleasing' comes from.

FACT #1

The most searched for term on Norwegian search engines during 2004 was 'Richard Briers'.

Welcome to True Fact a Day

Welcome to True Fact a Day - an exciting new contribution to the gaping black font of human knowledge. Every day, except weekends, public holidays and possibly some other days as well, this blog will be updated with a startling new TRUE fact, the possession of which will not only make you wiser but more popular and possibly more attractive. Enjoy. Drink in the knowledge. Savour the truth.