10 THINGS

10 THINGS WE DIDN'T KNOW THIS TIME LAST WEEK .

1. A US Patent has been granted for a "toy gas-fired missile and launcher assembly" (US patent 6,055,910). The gas in question? Colonic gas generated by the user.
2. The Duchess of Kent teaches children to rap.
3. The bikini-clad woman in the iPod adverts does not own one - she hasn't the money.
4. Urine was once made into ammonia to remove stains from laundry.
5. In the 1930s, a German inventor tried to deliver mail by rocket to one of the most remote parts of the UK, the tiny island of Scarp in the Outer Hebrides. Commemorative stamps were issued. But it ended in failure when the rocket exploded.
6. It takes a gallon of oil to make three fake fur coats.
7. Media studies is more popular than physics among A-level students.
8. Each successive monarch faces in a different direction on British coins.
9. White was the colour chosen for the Queen Mother's White Wardrobe - currently on show at Buckingham Palace - because she was in mourning for her mother at the time.
10. There's a sin of sinomy - to conduct financial transactions involving spiritual goods which Lincoln Cathedral had been accused of over the making of the Da Vinci Code movie.