One of the great benefits I miss by not going into pubs is how I don’t have to ponder the strange things beer drinkers tell you.

They are weird facts and you can never remember them again until you are back in the pub and having just the one the next day.

I mean, for example, did you know it was physically impossible to lick your elbow?

I saw a whole pub full of people trying it one night and all they succeeded in doing was knocking over about three pints of Guinness and a barmaid.

I have remembered lots of these weird facts - if that’s what they are - and I thought I would provide a list to keep you amused during long, hard nights down the boozer this winter.

I’ve not forgotten about the Trains to Ibiza feature, but I’m also hoping to drive over soon and I would love to make a comparison. Anyway the magnitude of the trip is still sinking in.

But first, the amazing sober facts file:

Butterflies taste with their feet.

On average, a hundred people choke to death on ballpoint pens in any year.

Elephants are the only animals that can’t jump.

It’s possible to lead a cow upstairs, but not down them.

Women blink nearly twice as much as men.

A snail can sleep for three years and wake up feeling quite refreshed.

No word in English rhymes with month.

Polar bears are always left-handed.

Dentists say your toothbrush should be kept at least six feet away from the toilet to avoid airborne particles when you flush the loo.

An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain. But that’s nothing: a duck’s quack doesn’t echo and no one knows why.

American Airlines saved $40,000 a year by cutting out the olive from each salad served in first class.

You can’t fold a piece of paper in half more than seven times.

The first product to have a barcode was Wrigley’s chewing gum.

Oak trees do not produce acorns until they are fifty years old.

Here’s a good one from the pub: The King of Hearts is the only King in a pack of cards without a moustache.

The liquid from young coconuts can be used as a substitute for blood plasma.

TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be typed on any one line of a keyboard.

While we’re into wordplay, “GO” is the shortest complete sentence and even if it could say it, a crocodile cannot stick its tongue out.

Richard Millhouse Nixon was the first US president whose name contains all the letters in the word criminal and William Jefferson Clinton was the second.

If Barbie were life-size, her measurements would be 39-23-33. She would be seven feet two inches tall. Her full name, by the way, is Barbara Millicent Roberts.

A Boeing 747’s wingspan is longer than the Wright Brothers’ first flight.

Almost everyone who reads this will try to lick his or her elbow.

Sinclair Newton

sinclairnewton@ibizahistoryculture.com