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5 things we learned this week

By Jon Connell of daily online newsletter

1 NEARLY a quarter of World Cup penalty kicks are aimed at the bottom left corner of the goal. But only 63 per cent of these are successful. According to analysts, more penalties are scored if kicked to the bottom right. The best place to aim is the top right corner, which only six per cent of penalty-takers attempt – but 88 per cent of those who try are rewarded with a goal.

2 Only 15 per cent of London street names commemorate foreigners. When academics analysed 4,932 street names in four major world cities, the UK capital was found to celebrate instead the monarchy and the military – compared with cosmopolitan Vienna, where nearly half the street signs honour foreigners.

3 Australians call takeaway roast chicken a ‘bachelor’s handbag’. This is because it is often bought by single people, as it requires no additional preparation and,

Down Under, often comes in a bag with handles.

4 Health guidance that we should drink eight glasses of water a day is wrong, say Aberdeen University researchers. The inflated figure was based partially on asking people how much they eat in a day, since much of our daily water intake is from food – and respondents often fib about eating less. What we really need is between 1.5 and 1.8 litres a day – six or seven cups.

5 The young woman in Vermeer’s painting Girl With A Pearl Earring never existed. The 1665 work isn’t technically a portrait – it’s a ‘tronie’ (meaning ‘face’ in 17th Century Dutch), and the word is used to mean a picture portraying a ‘type’ of person.

Sarah Vine

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2022-12-04T08:00:00.0000000Z

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