Brave new words

‘Selfie’ was declared to be Oxford Dictionaries’ ‘word of the year’. It hasn’t, however, yet been added to the Oxford English Dictionary. These are some of the words which have been added over the past year (and which have been around a surprisingly long time):

Bag woman, n; Campsite, n; Grey zone, n; Handover, n; Hand-wash, v; Headbang, v; Knobhead, n; Low-lifer, n; Smackhead, n

Funny old games

The Indian batsman Sachin Tendulkar retired aged 40 after playing 200 test matches. What sport should you choose if you want a long career?

oldest competitor at national

or international event

Athletics Everett Hosack – threw hammer part in US national indoor championships aged 101 in 2002 (though in an age category reserved for the over 100s)

Golf Jerry Barber – played on PGA tour aged 77 in 1994

Cricket Wilfred Rhodes – retired from Yorkshire aged 52 in 1930

Football Stanley Matthews – retired from Stoke City aged 50 in 1965

Tennis Martina Navratilova — played in doubles at Wimbledon aged 49 in 2006

The great divide

Paul Sykes pledged money to Ukip, leading some to fear that the right-wing vote will be split at the next election. How do the Ukip supporters in current polls compare with those who are backing the Conservatives?

Source: YouGov

Sticky traffic

From January most internet users in Britain will have to ‘opt in’ to access porn. But how much internet usage is porn?

— 60% of all website visits are ‘sexual in nature’, according to the MSNBC-Stanford-Duquesne study of 2000

— 37% of all website visits are to porn sites, according a press release by the net-filing firm Optenet in 2010

— 30% of page views are on porn sites, according to an estimate last year by the magazine ExtremeTech based on data from several large porn sites

— 2.4% of website visits are to porn sites according to an estimate by the blog Ministry of Truth this year.