What I've learned this week

1. Warren Mitchell read Chemistry at Oxford, turning to acting under the influence of Richard Burton.
2. Parts of Thomas Schelling's The Strategy of Conflict were typed by the same typist who worked on Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap.
3. Soft Cell's first hit, Tainted Love, was originally recorded by the woman who killed Marc Bolan.
4.Robbery rates in Spain are 92 times higher than in Japan.
5. The world's oldest living thing is over half a million years old, suggesting this fella might not be off his rocker.
6. It's possible for a man's height to double after the age of 30. This happened to Sir Jeffrey Hudson.
7. Earl Bolick, guitarist in the greatest combo that ever lived and if anyone says otherwise they lie (evidence), took part in the Normandy landings.

Comments

[jameshigham]

Chris, is there enough space in that brain of yours for all this?

[Matthew]

Surely the Spain figure per 100,000 is wrong? They have about 9/10th the number we have, and their population is something like 4/5 of our (england and wales). So their per capita rate should be slightly higher, but in fact it's listed as nearly 2.5 times higher. Seems to imply Spain's population is about 17m.

Still much higher than Japan, of course.

[gaddeswarup]

If you have not seen it already, this article may interest you:
http://www.columbia.edu/~rs328/GroupInequality.pdf