Interesting Fact - Human body

According to a report in the journal Nature, our feet are home to more than 100 funghi.

(Over the whole body there are around 200, all of which is completely harmless. They particularly love our feet, which provide a warm, dark and humid environment, especially under the toenails, between the toes, and around the heel.

Now don't go freaking out and scrubbing at your feet mercilessly, most of the time funghi does not cause a problem unless it multiplies in particular areas.)

If you're worried the NHS website has some useful advice.

http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Athletes-foot/Pages/Introduction.aspx

Interesting Word - GIF

 Steve Wilhite, the creator of the GIF (Graphics Interchange Format), a popular format for image files, has said that his invention should be pronounced as if it starts with a "j", like giraffe, rather than with a hard "g" like golf.

(At the Webby Awards, he flashed a gif up for his acceptance speech of 5 words (the maximum number you're allowed at the Webbies) and it said, "It's pronounced JIF, not GIF."

The twittersphere exploded, wars have been started over less, and it soon became clear that the entry in the Oxford English Dictionary finds both pronunciations are acceptable, but to be honest, I'm not bothered, I've always pronounced it with a hard "g", and I will continue to do so, because graphics is not pronounced as jraphics.)

Interesting Fact - Salaries

The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) has decided that MP's salaries in the UK are lagging behind that of Civil Servants.

(So, are they going to bring Civil Service pay in-line with pay for British MPs? No, of course not; it looks like they're going to award themselves a £10,000 pay rise.  A massive 25%.

MPs are currently paid £65,738 a year, and in a recent poll they (the MPs themselves) thought they should be paid £86,000 a year (some thought they should be paid £100,000). On top of that you have the "expenses". But before 1911 MPs weren't paid any salary, and in today's money that first salary would be worth, £39,000 - around Band 7 in the NHS for "specialist workers".

An IPSA spokesperson told the Sunday Times: "There is no recommendation yet, there are no proposals yet. We are working on that. We are going to do this in a very public and proper way with consultation. We will be consulting before the end of June and at that point we will be asking the public what they think of the proposal."

Well, as a member of the "public" I think some quotes from our illustrious leader are in order:-

"We are all in this together."

"We'll stay the course with austerity drive."

And the priceless:-

"You do not have to be an economist to know that putting up the cost of employing someone is a pretty barking thing to do when you're trying to get out of a recession."

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