Barometer

Catch a falling star Astronomers appealed to anyone who might have found a small, polished piece of rock: the remains of a meteor spotted as it streaked across Britain. Being hit by a meteorite has become a byword for an unlikely event, but just how unlikely is it? — One of the last cases of

Sister ships The Costa Allegra, sister ship of the Costa Corcordia, suffered a fire off the Seychelles. Are families of ships jinxed? —The Titanic had two sister ships. The Olympic collided with a naval vessel off the Isle of Wight soon after its maiden voyage in 1911, and again with a lightship off New York

Cradle to grave The Health Bill is one of numerous attempts to change the administrative make-up of the NHS. What did it look like on its first day, 5 July 1948? — There was a tripartite structure under the Minister of Health, Nye Bevan (who was also responsible for housing policy). — 14 regional hospital

Long to reign over us The Queen has become only the second British monarch to spend 60 years on the throne. To overtake Victoria, she would have to reign until 10 September 2015, but would still then be 19 years short of Sobhuza II of Swaziland, who began his reign on 10 December 1899, at

Bonus culture Some have called for an end to a ‘bonus culture’ in banks and big firms. But bonus culture has been around a long time… — Around the year ad 70, Roman legionnaires received bonuses of 25 denarii to supplement their salaries of 225 denarii. — Bonuses were recorded by 14th-century Florentine banks, with

Lords spiritual The bishops in the House of Lords, who led a successful rebellion against plans for a benefits cap this week, are a remarkable survival of Lords reform. — While most hereditary peers lost the right to sit in the Lords as part of the House of Lords Act 1999, the number of bishops

Condemned A Norfolk woman was given the honour of pressing a button to demolish a tower at the Campbells soup factory where her father was scalded to death in 1995. Here are some other buildings demolished to expunge bad memories: — 25 Cromwell Street, Gloucester, former home of Fred and Rose West — 5 College

War horses Steven Spielberg’s film War Horse was released this week. How many horses were killed in British Army service during the first world war? — According to the Official History of the War Veterinary Services, it was 484,143. — Michael Morpurgo, on the other hand, says he asked the Imperial War Museum before writing

100 candles Some of those who are due to be celebrating hundredth birthdays in 2012: 3 February Mary Carlisle, US actress who starred alongside Bing Crosby in Doctor Rhythm 8 April Alois Brunner, assistant to Adolf Eichmann, never brought to justice and still believed to be living under the name Dr Georg Fischer in Damascus 28 April Kaneto

Let the Games begin The budget for the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympics has been doubled to £81 million, the government has announced. The move has ignited fears that the ceremony could prove an expensive disaster — but there is no guarantee that things will go well even when kept simple.   — The

Gross domestic products The Office for Budget Responsibility downgraded UK GDP growth for 2011 to 0.9 per cent, down from 1.7 per cent. How many extra manufactured products does a 0.9 per cent growth in GDP — £12.56 million — translate to? 4.6bn 250g jars of Marmite 60m Dyson vacuum cleaners 34m pairs of Church’s

• Found in the trash The Information Commissioner warned Oliver Letwin that he has broken the law by dumping documents, including letters from constituents, into litter bins in St James’s Park. Here are some things the world would never have had were it not for documents turning up in rubbish bins: —A letter suggesting that

Another world Six cosmonauts have completed an experiment in which they were isolated inside a container for 520 days to simulate a voyage to Mars. A similar experiment, the Lunar-Mars Life Support Test Project between 1995-97 isolated crews for 91 days at a time. These were some of the findings: — Without natural daylight, the

• Initial problems The leaders of the eurozone countries have hatched a plan to bundle up dodgy Greek government debt and sell it to the Chinese. Without any apparent sense of irony, the debt will be sold in the form of a Special Purpose Investment Vehicle — known as Spiv for short. Some other unfortunate