Fantastic Facts

Human beings blink their eyes every six seconds during their lifetimes. This means that you will blink about two hundred and fifty million times - sounds frightening doesn't it?

Did you know that the average person has about five million hairs on his or her body, and that the only place where hair does not grow is on the palms of the hands and the soles of the feet?

If you wanted to count a thousand million pound notes, one by one, it would take you seventy years to do it - without losing count of course!

If you ever want to make friends with a pig, sing to it. Pigs are very fond of music.

Is your surname Smith? if it is, you're not alone. There are enough Smiths in England and Wales alone to fill the Wembley Stadium eight times over.

There are plenty of unusual hobbies around, but Peter the Great of Russia had the strangest - he loved dentistry. The Tsar practised on members of his court, who were not always keen to volunteer.

In 1978 a doctor paid a visit to a woman who had been bedridden for forty years. He could find nothing wrong with her. He discovered that years before, her doctor had diagnozed that she had flu, and had told her to stay in bed until he returned. He forgot to come back, and she had stayed in bed ever since!


Taken from "Fantastic Facts", Cliveden Press