18 - Voting to Golf to Horses, Pete Wingfield (?) and Vinnie Jones

Q - What's the age of majority in the Isle of Man ? 14, 16, 18 or 21? Read on ....

At 18 we are regarded as being on the threshold of adulthood and is the voting age in many countries - USA, UK, Ireland, Australia, Canada, in fact almost all European and Western countries. It is the 'age of majority' that also means we can serve on a jury, open our own bank account, buy alcohol and 'officially' view movies rated 18+. But despite being able to vote at 18 it doesn't automatically follow that one can stand for election - that can be 21 in many countries.
Not all countries have 18 as the 'age of majority'. It is as low as 14 in Albania, American Samoa and The Isle of Man while it is at a high of 21 in some Middle East states like UAE, Egypt and Bahrain as well as Cameroon and Singapore.

A golf course has 18 holes

Australian Rules Football Teams have 18 players

In horseracing the name of a horse cannot exceed 18 letters. Yes there are rules and regulations about the naming of race horses - more

In music there are a number of songs with 18 in the title or lyrics. In 1975 Pete Wingfield had a 'one hit wonder' in the UK and USA with a song called "18 With A Bullet". Just to show that nothing is what it seems the 18 in the title refers to a music chart position and bullet was a term used at the time to describe a song that was selling well and rising up the charts.  Not a classic song but here it is ...

The song did make a return in 1998 when it featured on the soundtrack of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels starring the footballer turned actor Vinnie Jones. The film coincidentally was rated 18+

580 - Calories are Dangerous Numbers

Q - A Big Mac has more calories than 3 Mars Bars - true or false?  Read on....

When God created us he forgot one thing that would be very handy and that is a built in calorie counter . Wouldn't it be very convenient if our brain had a little counter that could tell us, in real time, how many calories we have taken in over the last 24 hours and how many we have burnt up - and maybe a food shut down control if we are over the limit. Health and diet issues would be so much easier. But he didn't so we have to educate and apply self discipline.

What is a calorie? In nutrition terms what we refer to as a calorie is actually a kilocalorie and in scientific terms it is the amount of energy needed to increase the temperature of 1 Kg of water by 1 degree celcius. For this blog that's it as far as the science is concerned.

Why are we showing you a Big Mac? Well todays blog is a snapshot of some numbers that we should know about our daily diet and the Big Mac has 580 calories and that, as we will see, is a significant chunk of the daily calories that our bodies need. If you go for bust with a Big Mac Meal (large fries and Coke) that will be 1350 calories. 

What does that mean?

The average male requires a daily calorie intake of about 2,800 while the average female needs about 2,000. Now it's easy to see where this is headed if you are a regular Big Mac Meal customer - nearly half your daily needs if you're male and nearly 70% for females and you will be like our friend in the boat.

But it's not all about about Big Macs - that's only to make a point. It can all go wrong without ever looking at the big M.

• 2700 = Average calorie needs for a male
• 2000 = Average calorie needs for a female
• 1700 = Our bodies burn up calories even we we are asleep or do nothing ( BMR calculator ) and as a rough rule of thumb you can multiply your weight in pounds x 10 to get a ballpark figure e.g. 170 lbs weight x 10 = 1700 calories your body will burn naturally. Any activity will burn up extra but lack of activity you got a problem! Check the calculator above

Ok - so you're feeling smug because you don't indulge in Big Macs.
But any of the following is the 580 calorie equivalent of a Big Mac

29 - Linking Buckingham Palace to California to ABBA to Liverpool to GAA

Q - There is a town in California called 29 Coconuts - true or false ? Read on ....

The big event of today is the royal wedding of William and Kate - it can't get more newsworthy than that!

It may be a coincidence that they are getting hitched on the 29th and the fact that they were both born 29 years ago in 1982. Kate ( or Catherine Duchess of Cambridge as she will be titled) is older as she was born on Jan 9th so she is in her 30th year. William is 29 as he was born on Jun 21st so he is 163 days younger than his bride.

A few other numbers you will hear about todays event:
1500 - the number of guets invited to the wedding cermony in Westminster Abbey
650 - the number of guests invited by the Queen to lunch in Buckingham Palace
300 - the number of guests invited to dinner, in the evening, by Prince Charles
9 - the number of years the couple have been in a relationship
5 - the number of horse drawn carriages in the procession from Westminster Abbey to Buckingham Palace
3- the bells of Westminster Abbey will ring for 3 hours after the wedding
150,000 - the number of souvenir programmes of the event that will be printed and sold
100 - the number of members of the public who will get to attend the wedding in the Abbey. They were chosen by random draw.

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Other trivia (non-royal) on the number 29

• We live on just 29% of the earths surface - yes the earth is 29% land and 71% under water.
• The Scandanavian (Norwegian, Swedish, Danish) alphabets have 29 letters - the regular 26 plus what are known as diacritic characters examples of which are  é, è, ê, ó, ò, â (basically letters with a glyph).
• A heads up (pun) - the human skull has 29 bones
• Who was Lt. Hiroo Onoda? He was the last soldier to drop his arms after WW2. A Japanese soldier, he spent 29 years on a remote Philippine island,  failing to heed communications that WW2 ended and continuing to hide in the jungles and serve his country until 1974 when he finally surrendered. More
• 29 Palms - the name of a town, sorry, city in California which is home to The Joshua Tree National Park. The Joshua Tree  was made famous by the U2 album of that name. The actual Joshua tree (not sure if it was in the Park) that was photographed for the iconic image for the album became a tourist attraction but actually fell in 2000. It's still an attraction and an entrepid fan has marked the spot with a plaque with the inscription ' Have You Found What You're Looking For?" How cool is that?