10 things … we discovered this autumn

1 Jimmy Savile and Margaret Thatcher celebrated New Year’s Eve together for 11 years in a row.

2 Young Chinese girls in Hunan province used Nushu, a language that no men could read, to communicate with one another.

3 The forces involved when a woodpecker drills at a tree are up to 1,000 times stronger than gravity.

4 New homes in Denmark are 80% bigger than new homes in the UK.

5 In 1941 the Government in the UK wanted to know how many bras women owned.

6 Britain has 800 major self-storage units, the same as the rest of Europe put together.

7 The average Briton suffers 726 hangovers in a lifetime.

8 Apple’s market capitalisation is $340bn – more than the economy of Singapore, or all the illegal drugs in the world.

9 Fifteen per cent of European monarchs who lived between 600 and 1800 were murdered. Their risk of violent death was more than 700 times greater than their subjects and seven times greater than young black American males today.

10 In Britain, ‘growing apart’ (27%) has replaced ‘infidelity’ (25%) as the top reason given for marriage breakdown.

Fiona McAnena is the global brand director, BUPA (membership)
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