Friday, February 09, 2007

Most boring facts

2nd post today. I thought I would publish my top 10 most boring facts:

1. When the GPO wanted to introduce postcodes into the UK, they experimented in Norwich and Croydon first and used a 3 letter designation for each; NOR…and CRO… Eventually they settled on 1 or 2 letter designations for each town NR (Norwich), EH (Edinburgh), M (Manchester) etc, but Croydon kept the CRO for it’s central area postcodes, changing the letter O for a number 0. This is why CR0 xxx is the only postal area in the UK to use a zero on the initial part.


2. All UK road numbers radiate from either Edinburgh or London:

a. A1 – London to Edinburgh
b. A2 – London to Dover
c. A3 – London to Portsmouth
d. A4 – London to Bristol
e. A5 – London to Hollyhead
f. A6 – London to Carlisle
g. A7 – Edinburgh to Carlisle
h. A8 – Edinburgh to Greenock
i. A9 – Edinburgh to John O’ Groats

Within each spoke of the wheel (going clockwise) roads are classified as beginning with the same No. For example: between the A1 and A2 almost all roads will be classified A2x(x) or B2xx and between the A7 and A8 most roads will be classified A7x(x) or B7xxx.

You can therefore estimate which area of the country you are in by the road No. alone!

There are exceptions, such as the A34, which cross zones but one end of it will be appropriate area, in this case between the A3 and A4.

Motorways are not necessarily included in this classification but as they often follow trunk routes, they frequently coincide.

3. The letter Q does not appear in the name of any US State but all other 25 letters do.

4. When the rest of the UK had it’s telephone system provided by BT, the residents of Hull had their own telephone company, Kingston Communications with cheaper bills and better service.

5. No Belgian band or singer has ever had a UK No. 1 but Plastic Bertrand got to No. 8 in 1978 with the punk classic 'Ca Plane Pour Moi'.

6. Northern Ireland have played England 75 times but won only 7 of them.

7. The third highest medal winners (after USA and USSR) in the history of the Olympic games is Britain, but the third highest tally of Gold medals is Italy

8. Light takes 8 minutes to reach us from the sun. Therefore you are looking at the sun where it was in the sky 8 minutes ago not were it is in reality.

9. Los Angeles once had a the most extensive tram-lines of any city in the world until General Motors, Standard Oil, and Firestone Tyres bought the lines and closed them down in the late 50’s. It now has the most extensive Freeways.

10. The wealthiest man to arise from the California gold rush of 1849 was William Brannan who purchased all the prospecting supplies in San Francisco at the start of the rush and resold them at a substantial profit.

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