1-98% of British homes have carpeted floors. In Italy, only 2% do.
2-There are 5.9 calories in the glue of a British postage stamp.
3-British spies stopped using semen as invisible ink because it began to smell if it wasn't fresh.
4-Over 600,000 companies (including 25 with flats in One Hyde Park) are registered in the British Virgin Islands (population 28,882).
5-51% of British women under 50 have never been married: twice as many as in 1980.
6-In 2011, British trains were delayed by 16,000 hours because of people stealing metal parts from the railways.
7-95% of the lead in British army bullets comes from recycled materials.
8-The Companies Act (2006) is the longest act in history; it is so complex that most British companies unwittingly break the law six times a day.
9-The average British woman spends £100,000 on make-up in a lifetime.
10-The Royal Mail spends £1 million a year on a billion red rubber bands. British postmen use 2 million of them every day.
11-Prince Charles is the longest-serving heir to the throne in British history. He has held the position for 60 years.
12-1968 was the only year of the 20th century in which no member of the British armed services was killed on active service.
13-In the 1930s, British women working for Directory Inquiries were required to be at least 5 feet 3 inches tall so they could reach the top of the switchboard.
14-British geologists have discovered more of the world’s oil than the geologists of all the other nations put together.
15-After being annexed by the British Empire, the sarong-clad Burmese referred to their new overlords as ‘The Trouser People’.
16-A 2011 study in the journal Psychology, Crime and Law tested 39 British senior managers and CEOs and found that they had more psychopathic tendencies than patients in Broadmoor.
17-Until 1857, it was legal for British husbands to sell their wives. The going rate was £3,000 (£23,000 in today’s money).
18-If all the British Empire’s dead of the First World War were to march four abreast down Whitehall, it would take them almost four days and nights to pass the Cenotaph.
19-British moths include the Uncertain, the Confused, the Magpie, the Lackey, the Drinker, the Streak, the Ruddy Highflyer, the Buff Arches, the Figure of Eighty, the Anomalous, the Dark Dagger, the Lettuce Shark, the Isabelline Tiger, the Waved Tabby and the Mother Shipton.
20-British troops in India during the Second World War were issued with the memorable advice: ‘Defeat the Axis, Use Prophylaxis’.
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