h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

According to my calculations the Poland system means that there are 188,560,320,000 Rugby Union pitches in Wales. They will be pleased.

I feel we should carry on using Belgium as the measure. I mean what else is Belgium famous for?

I have it on good authority that Belgium produces 45 Billion matches a year (or it did around the mid eighties, before disposable lighters came into their own). Perhaps this is where they are using all that wood from the rainforests. And apparently the cigarette lighter was invented (1816) before the match (1827).

And another thing, the first beauty contest was held in Belgium in 1888.

And the Belgian Hare is in fact a Rabbit.

There is a spa named "Spa" in Belgium from which the word derives.

Now there is some good ol' useless info.

i've heard that most of Europe's opium is farmed in Afganistan?

yeah, i know completely off topic.... but, thats pretty useless info, isnt it?

You can't be off topic in a thread called useless information....

unless you say something useful...

Yeah, there is a fairy tale by H C Andersen where there is something similar to a cigarette lighter.

I think it has been shown that the rains forests are on fact not big sources of oxygen. Besides, there´s still loads of forests in Russia.

They must be! At least for the immediate area and the things that live in them. Besides, cutting them down just to graze cattle is absurd and stupid and utterly exploitative, short-sighted and just plain dumb!

Cattle are, to speakers of jargon, 'grain-consuming units.' So that's how they get round it...
How many slowly-flowing panes of glass are there in a Poland?

Glass is most definitely a solid. Many people think it's a liquid because the phase transition in glasses from solid to liquid isn't easily observable. The same can be said of some kinds of wax.

The Tinder Box by Hans Christian Andersen.

45 billion matches can be made from less than 1000 trees.

Just thought I'd add that.

hey, did you know that...
the city of Chicago derives it's name from a Native American word "shee-kang-ong" which means "stinking".

There is a town in South Dakota called, "Twobarnsachurchandawatertower".

I just tried 'matches' on a search engine and got 4,060,000 matches.

Would that be 4,060,000 strikes?

You're out

interestingly, 'strikes' gets 1,730,000 hits and 'you're out' gets 5,230,000.