The Final Countdown

It wasn't supposed to be like this. I had planned a parade complete with souvenir programme, a payload of digital fireworks and had even hired a few talking heads to digest the year in fact. Instead, the year is drawing to a close and I don't even have time to cast a casual eye over my first full year of fact-finding. Instead, I've been scrabbling for titbits inside crackers and under the tree, as the festive season finally rolled around. My knees are weak, my eyes are heavy - but I'm on the home straight. Here's the final fact burst of 2008:

Barmy health-conscious kids' TV show Lazy Town is made in Iceland.

23% of Hawaiians are vegetarian.

My new boss doesn't believe in the institution of marriage.

Sugar doesn't make children hyperactive (unless it's mixed with amphetamines - just a disclaimer)

Mert O'Donaghue was the first player to record a 147 break in a competitive snooker game. He is also famous for nothing else.

Breathing from your diaphragm helps you to project your VOICE.

Andy-Scott Lee, who I had previously thought famous only for losing on Pop Idol and being Lisa "Number 23? That's shit!" Scott-Lee's brother, was in forgotten boyband 3SL.

This bizarre selection took me to Christmas Eve, where the facts inevitably got briefly festive:

"All I Want For Christmas Is You" is Mariah Carey's biggest-selling single ever.

Conkers are horse chestnuts, rather than regular chestnuts.

That pretty much wraps up the festive section. Hardly 'A Christmas Carol', was it?

Cheesecake is a term for an attractive woman.

Rose wine is made by peeling the skin from red grapes (and then, y'know, mashing it up and that)

Armadillos (including the Holiday Armadillo) are the only animal other than humans to suffer from leprosy.

Menthe pastille is the same thing as Creme de Menthe (by this point, the drinks cabinet was emptying nicely)

Nestle is based in Croydon (they're welcome to each other).

And so to my final fact of this tumultuous year, which started with Geraint Jones waxing lyrical about time zones and has featured a mixed race man winning a U.S. election, the death of Woolworths, a prank phonecall suffering a ludicrously disproportionate backlash, and of course, the occasional mention of the total economic annihilation of the world as we know it.

The clothes shop Morgan, currently teetering on the brink of administration, is based in France.

See you in 2009.