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We all assume that the clothes we wear are the norm – or almost! So hopefully some interesting facts gleaned from the web follow.

Some people just cannot be bothered to keep up with recent trends, while others can’t get enough of the latest styles.

Whether you love it or hate it, you’ll enjoy these 100 interesting fashion facts.

1. In the United States, each person owns an average of seven pairs of blue jeans. That’s one for every day of the week!
2. Men have been wearing shorts for decades, but women were only allowed to wear them in public after World War II. One of the main reasons for this was because less fabric was available during the war, so shorts were more cost-effective than pants or skirts.
3. The T-shirt is one of the most popular items of clothing in the world, and around two billion of them are sold every single year.
4. Historically, purple clothes were only worn by magistrates, emperors and other aristocracy in Rome, Italy.
5. The loincloth is the oldest item of clothing, but the second oldest is the skirt – an item which is still very popular today.
6. Thousands of fashion magazines are sold every year, but the first ever fashion magazine was sold in Germany in 1586.
7. While lots of things are increasing in price, clothing is actually decreasing. Since 1992, the price of clothes has gone down by 8.5%.
8. In 1907, a woman was arrested on a beach in Boston for wearing a one-piece swimsuit.
9. Bras have been through different styles over the years, but you can now purchase a bra that can also be used as a gas mask.
10. On the subject of bras, the famous author Mark Twain (who wrote The Adventures of Tom Sawyer) was the inventor of the bra clasp.
11. In the Middle Ages, poorer people would wear mittens, while the richer would wore gloves to show off their wealth.
12. You can’t go out these days without seeing a shopping center, thanks to the ancient Romans who built the very first one.
13. An unlikely person to be associated with the fashion world, Napoleon invented the buttons for sleeves after his soldiers kept wiping their noses on their button-free clothes. Ew!
14. Doc Martens come in all different colors and sizes now, but the first pair was created using old tires.
15. Genoan sailors were known colloquially as “Genes” and wore cotton pants, which is where we get the word “jeans” from.
16. The word “gymnos” means “naked” in Greek, which gives us our word “gym” or “gymnasium,” due to the fact that Ancient Greeks used to exercise naked.
17. W. Griffith, producer of silent movies in Hollywood, thought that actresses’ eyes could look a little better. He went ahead and created the first fake eyelashes.
18. Elizabeth I was a big fan of hats, and as a result, females who did not wear them on Sundays and public holidays were given a large fine during her reign.
19. Up until the 17^th century, men didn’t wear underwear at all.
20. Men wore high heels to ride horses up until 1740. It was thought that the heels helped them to ride better.
21. Baggy pants were first worn inside a Los Angeles prison, since the inmates weren’t allowed to wear belts.
22. The Ancient Romans wore yellow clothing on their wedding days.
23. The European women in medieval times used to wear green, which was thought to aid and/or symbolize fertility.
24. Blue is the color of loyalty, which explains why U.S. police officers wear blue uniforms.
25. Lipstick is one of the most common items you’ll find in a makeup store, but did you know that one of the main ingredients is fish scales?
26. The mini skirt was named after the Mini Cooper, the favorite car of its designer, Mary Quant.
27. The long, fluffy wigs which are commonly seen worn by judges today derived from the days of King Louis XIII. The French monarch suffered quite badly with bald patches, and wore a massive wig to appear macho and powerful.
28. Coco Chanel was an orphan at the age of 12, but that didn’t stop her becoming one of the greatest fashion designers the world has ever seen. As well as the little black dress, she also created costume jewelry.
29. Louis XIV of France outlawed anybody from wearing red high heels except for himself and his royal court.
30. And as Garaeth’s son pointed out ‘what is the point of shoes/socks having left and right printed on them when your feet do not’!
31. Left and right shoes were not produced until the early C19th.

10 Sweets that you can only buy in the UK. I have no way of checking as I am not allowed to travel outside my local area at the moment. Answers on next page

Can you name the songs? Copied from the Sun.

So the new date is the 20th January – hopefully this year! From birth we are told that we are he most important person in the history of the universe. Then things occur that prove otherwise. So my car needs a new part which has to come from Germany. I am not sure why it is so special that it needs to do an Olympic Torch style tour of Britain to get to my car though! And even then it does not fully solve the problem or stop it from happening again. At this rate I will need driving lessons!

So I have a head filled with random trivia (some would be less kind!). So some food stuff!

I do not want to use this blog for my own woes – but ….. my car. At the end of November it started misbehaving! It drove beautifully, but when I locked and left it it would sulk and then the alarm would go off, the radio came on and the boot unlocked. Very strange. So when I locked it I disabled the internal sensor which worked for a while. The local garage where unable to diagnose. Then the alarm went off again and the battery went flat (I managed to stop the alarm – so the neighbours were not inconvenienced.

Here are 11 first lines. Can you name the film and who said them?

I have been a beneficiary of this in my life. It was brought to my mind when Aaron from Sandford Stores phoned totally unexpected, 5 minutes ago, and said he was at the supermarket and would I like anything. Another person in the village comes to mind immediately, Di Redfern who firstly offered me somewhere to sleep when I was homeless, and then also took my possessions into store for me until I found a new home. If only everyone was like them?

So Bonkers Johnson is going to address the nation at 8pm. As rates here (Sandford) and Lostwithiel and Bodmin are up 25% on the week to 30th Dec.` It would seem that he needs to take Starmer’s advice and a total lockdown is necessary. He also needs to clarify the death rate – too many people are still saying that the within 28 days of a positive test is wrong. It does not matter if it is wrong – covid patients are filling the beds and others are dying because of this. So Covid might not be killing them directly – but their dying is a result of covid.

Time for some trivial knowledge about walls. Why walls, why not?

Twelve-angled stone – found in a wall in Cuzco, Peru, how this stone was cut so perfectly is not fully understood.

When Donald Trump’s hero, Hadrian built his wall the Romans had no aubergines, peppers, courgettes, green beans, or tomatoes, staples of modern Italian cooking.

Dry stone walls have different designs in different parts of the country, often due to the types of stone used – Cornish Walls are often herring-bone.

THE WALL THAT SURROUNDS THE ancient fort of Kumbhalgarh is one of the best-kept secrets in India and perhaps the world. Protecting a massive fort that contains over 300 ancient temples, the wall was constructed half a millennium ago in tandem with Kumbhalgarh Fort itself.

The Berlin Wall was in existence from 1961 to 1989 and divided / isolated part of the city from Soviet influenced East Berlin.

Western (or wailing) Wall – Built by Herod the Great in 19BC, this ancient limestone barricade once formed part of an important Jewish temple.

Great Zimbabwe Walls – Great Zimbabwe was the onetime capital of the Kingdom of Zimbabwe, but today this former city lies in ruins. Those ruins are, however, surrounded by towering walls, which stand as a formidable reminder of the might of this once great empire.

The medieval city of London had 7 gates (and some water gates). The gates were Aldgate, Bishopsgate, Moorgate, Cripplegate, Aldersgate, Newgate and Ludgate.

When is a wall not a wall? When it is a Ha-ha.

And finally the best song title with wall in it! Another brick in the wall – Pink Floyd