Only the Beeb

Afternoon all, Before you start on getting on with 2015, have a look back at our almanac of the best unexpected facts of 2014. 1. The Pentagon has a plan for combating a zombie apocalypse. Find out more  2. Seals like to have sex with penguins. Find out more 3. Hello Kitty is not a cat - she's a little girl. Find out more 4. It's quicker - by about three hours - to read the Hobbit than watch Peter Jackson's movie trilogy. Find out more 5. There have been lions in London since the 13th Century - arriving either in 1210 or 1235 - although they may have died out briefly under Henry VI in 1436. Find out more 6. Age renders you less certain as to whether a badger or a baboon would win in a fight. Find out more 7. Dreams get weirder as the night wears on. Find out more 8. Gladiators were mostly vegetarian. Find out more 9. The release of a track by Freddie Mercury and Michael Jackson was delayed more than 30 years because Mercury objected to the presence of Bubbles the chimp at its recording. Find out more 10. It's possible to charge a Nokia Lumia 930 using 800 apples and potatoes connected with copper wire and nails. Find out more 11. Watching action films makes you eat more. Find out more 12. Sir John Gielgud wrote the script for a gay porn film. Find out more 13. It's against the law in England and Wales to swallow and regurgitate goldfish, even if they survive, but it may be legal to do the same with an octopus. Find out more 14. American teachers are allowed to whack children with a paddle (a wooden bat a little shorter and thinner than a cricket bat) in 19 states. Find out more 15. There is a "right" way to eat chocolate - you pop a piece in your mouth, let it melt between the tongue and the palate, and then breathe in through your mouth and out through your nose. Find out more 16. It's actually fairly easy to weigh an ant. Find out more 17. At least three Google employees have lived for months in their vehicles on the firm's California campus, eating in the staff cafeteria and showering in gyms. Find out more 18. The bass line of Lou Reed's Walk on the Wild Side cost £17. Find out more 19. Dollar squiggles on the pavement denote electric cables below. Find out more 20. The most effective office regime is to work for 52 consecutive minutes and then have a 17-minute break. Find out more 21. Ukraine's navy is equipped with combat sea lions. Find out more 22. A porcupine can fight off a pride of lions. Find out more 23. Two per cent of Anglican clergy are not sure whether God is "more than a human construct". Find out more 24. Los Angeles prison inmates have to pass a "gay-dar" test to stay in the safest wing. Find out more 25. Over 88% of individual winners at the Darwin Awards are men. Find out more 26. At the Starbucks outlet in the CIA's Langley headquarters, baristas aren't allowed to write customers' names on their cups. Find out more 27. When a person's age ends with a nine they are more likely to seek extramarital affairs, sign up for their first marathon, and run marathons faster than when they were slightly older or slightly younger. Find out more 28. Popping a criminal's phone in a microwave and closing the door (but not switching it on) stops said criminal wiping it remotely. Find out more 29. In China, Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson are known as Curly Fu and Peanut. Find out more 30. The most expensive pies of any English league football club are to be found at Brighton & Hove Albion - Rochdale's are the cheapest. Find out more 31. It is almost impossible to take a German-registered car into Japan. Find out more 32. Olive oil and baking powder are rubbed onto parts of the Sydney Opera House in order to maintain it. Find out more 33. Tall men get married earlier but short men stay married longer. Find out more 34. Dodger Stadium, home of the Los Angeles Dodgers, is the most expensive Major League Baseball ground in which to propose marriage. Find out more 35. There are more bicycles in Copenhagen than people. Find out more 36. Lawrence of Arabia was offered a job as a nightwatchman at the Bank of England. He turned it down. Find out more 37. The Indian record for staff absenteeism is thought to have been set by a biology teacher who did not turn up for work for 23 years. Find out more 38. Senior technology gurus at the White House don't have to tuck their shirts in. Find out more 39. Elephants can differentiate between men and women, and between different ethnicities, when they hear a voice. Find out more 40. There is a brown bear living at the Chernobyl site. Find out more 41. The average length of a Best Picture Academy Award-winning film is two hours and 20 minutes. Find out more 42. The best way to prevent your headphones from tangling in your bag is to join the ends together. Find out more 43. It is illegal to race rubber ducks in some US states. Find out more 44. A salmon cannon fires 40 fish a minute. Find out more 45. Simon Cowell has a saying for people editing shots of him on X Factor: Two words - happy and handsome. Find out more 46. When making a decision, former England and Derbyshire fast bowler Devon Malcolm asks himself: "What would Margaret Beckett do?" Find out more 47. Yorkshire and Humberside are as red-headed as Ireland. Find out more 48. There is a symphonic Finnish prog-rock concept album about Scrooge McDuck. Find out more 49. In Somalia, the word for president also means "big head". Find out more 50. When Richard III was killed he suffered at least 11 injuries, although some of them might have been inflicted after death. Find out more 51. According to OED, Cornish and Welsh have had less influence on the English language than Hawaiian, Swahili or Zulu. Find out more 52. The US National Security Agency used to have a Clown Club for staff members. Find out more 53. Kenny G's Going Home is used in public spaces in China to tell people to go home. Find out more 54. Czech deer still avoid the Iron Curtain. Find out more 55. Sir Bradley Wiggins is a fan of the Archers. Find out more 56. The largest hunting dinosaur probably ate whole sharks. Find out more 57. In Oklahoma, the average marijuana joint costs the same as 2.41 bottles of Bud Light. Find out more 58. Group jogging is a crime in Burundi. Find out more 59. It would cost £12.6 billion to issue every man, woman and child in the UK with an owl (and £69.3 billion if each was to get its own aviary). Find out more 60. Some nurses in the UK wear fat suits as part of their training for dealing with morbidly obese patients. Find out more 61. People are more likely to catch yawns from people of their own ethnicity. Find out more 62. Putting broken pottery in plant pots doesn't aid drainage. Find out more 63. When given a date far in the future, William Hague can tell you off the top of his head which day of the week it will be. Find out more 64. Detainees at Guantanamo are allowed to watch the World Cup but don't see it live - it is made available a day later to ensure nothing subversive can be conveyed. Find out more 65. Guinness in 1982 came close to re-launching the brand as an English beer brewed in west London. Find out more 66. Prince is very good at ping pong. Find out more 67. When crows drop stones into water to make food more accessible, they display the reasoning skills of children aged 5-7. Find out more 68. People called Eleanor are disproportionately likely to get into Oxford University. Find out more 69. Hillary Clinton hasn't driven a car since 1996. Find out more 70. Man-eating sharks are nine times more likely to kill men than women. Find out more 71. Cate Blanchett and her husband share an email account. Find out more 72. Men whose dating profile pictures are taken outdoors on a sunny day with trees in the background are most popular. Find out more 73. Main characters are more likely to die in children's cartoons than in films for adults. Find out more 74. The authorities in Oregon, USA, are very, very particular about getting urine in their reservoirs. Find out more 75. It's possible for a bat in the UK to fly across the sea to continental Europe. Find out more 76. Richard Nixon was interested in the mating habits of pandas. Find out more 77. The code A113 is implanted in every Pixar movie. Find out more 78. The coat of a dead dog called London Jack, whose stuffed remains were used to collect charity donations at railway stations, changed colour twice. Find out more 79. French trains are fatter than 50 years ago. Find out more 80. In primates there is a correlation between female infidelity and males having large testicles. Find out more 81. The last British Prime Minister to regularly wear a wedding ring in public was Lady Thatcher. Find out more 82. Kladdkaka, a flat gooey chocolate cake, is the most googled food in Sweden. Find out more 83. The faces of the fastest riders in the Tour de France are 25% more attractive to women than the slowest 10% of riders, although women on the pill had a reduced preference for quicker riders. Find out more 84. Early risers are more unethical at night and night owls more immoral in the morning. Find out more 85. St Mary's Church is the most ambiguous term on Wikipedia. Find out more 86. Researchers at Michigan Technical University have been looking for the existence of time travellers on the internet. Find out more 87. The sound of a ticking clock can make women keener to have babies younger. Find out more 88. Dead passengers on British Airways flights used to be given sunglasses, a vodka and tonic and a copy of the Daily Mail to disguise them from other passengers. Find out more 89. The Black Death improved public health in subsequent centuries, although no-one knows the exact reason. Find out more 90. There are at least three different approved ways of saying Hyundai, depending on whether you're in South Korea, the UK or US. Find out more 91. England manager Roy Hodgson and player Leighton Baines share a passion for the novelist Haruki Murakami. Find out more 92. The Star Wars character Han Solo was partly based on Francis Ford Coppola. Find out more 93. The first bar code on a commercial product was on a packet of Wrigley's Juicy Fruit chewing gum. Find out more 94. Pennsylvania is the most linguistically rich US state - it has five dialects, compared with the typical two or three. Find out more 95. There is a once-a-year a bus service from Salisbury Plain to Imber. Find out more 96. Comedian Les Dawson wrote a secret romantic thriller under the nom de plume Maria Brett-Cooper. Find out more 97. Congo-Brazzaville has a peat bog the size of England. Find out more 98. Snakes squeeze tree trunks far harder than necessary. Find out more 99. The pope believes that animals go to heaven. Find out more 100. The dark side of the Moon is actually turquoise. Find out more