Day: 3 January 2008

100 Things We Didn’t Know Until 2007

bbc logo100 things we didn’t know last year is a year-end list put together by the BBC, and it’s a fun list. I read all 100!

Some selections from the list:

1. Coach travel is the safest form of road transport in the country.
6. Dishcloths are purged of 99% of their bacteria during two minutes in a microwave.
26. Harvesting rhubarb in candlelight helps preserve its flavour.
35. Denmark is the happiest country in Europe; Italy the unhappiest. (The UK was 9th out of 15.)
54. The Australian town of Eucla has its own time zone.
74. Sheffield FC is the world’s oldest football club.
91. In Iceland, 96% of women go to university.

Germans Don’t Like Smog

Thanks to the BBCBerlin, Cologne, and Hanover have all decided to implement a neat way to make sure that their air is cleaner than other cities by using stickers. Drivers will have to buy stickers that denote how much pollution their cars emit and will be charge accordingly when driving in designated environmental zones. This is such a neat and simple idea.

Drivers now have to display a coloured sticker on their vehicle to enter the inner city zones. The colour depends on the pollutants the vehicle emits.

The cities are gradually phasing in fines of 40 euros (£29;$58) for anyone caught driving without a sticker.

Other German cities – but not all – plan to have such zones later in 2008.

The stickers – green, red or yellow – are mandatory not only for locals but also for foreign drivers, including tourists.

There is a one-off charge of five to 10 euros for the stickers, issued by Germany’s vehicle registration authority and authorised garages.