Barack Obama

By Bowch on November 11, 2008 9:55 PM
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Fifty things you might not know about President-elect, Barack Obama:

As a teenager he took drugs including marijuana and cocaine
Daughter Malia's godmother is Jesse Jackson's daughter Santita
He and Michelle made $4.2 million (£2.7 million) last year, with much coming from sales of his books
He applied to appear in a black pin-up calendar while at Harvard but was rejected by the all-female committee.
He ate dog meat, snake meat, and roasted grasshopper while living in Indonesia
He can bench press an impressive 200lbs
He can speak Spanish
He carries a tiny Madonna and child statue and a bracelet belonging to a soldier in Iraq for good luck
He collects Spider-Man and Conan the Barbarian comics
He doesn't drink coffee and rarely drinks alcohol
He drives a Ford Escape Hybrid, having ditched his gas-guzzling Chrysler 300
He enjoys playing Scrabble and poker
He has his hair cut once a week by his Chicago barber, Zariff, who charges $21 (£13)
He has read every Harry Potter book
He has said many of his friends in Indonesia were "street urchins"
He hates the youth trend for trousers which sag beneath the backside
He is left-handed - the sixth post-war president to be left-handed
He keeps on his desk a carving of a wooden hand holding an egg, a Kenyan symbol of the fragility of life
He kept a pet ape called Tata while in Indonesia
He owns a set of red boxing gloves autographed by Muhammad Ali
He owns four identical pairs of black size 11 shoes
He plans to install a basketball court in the White House grounds
He promised Michelle he would quit smoking before running for president - he didn't
He repaid his student loan only four years ago after signing his book deal
He says his worst habit is constantly checking his BlackBerry
He took Michelle to see the Spike Lee film Do The Right Thing on their first date
He uses an Apple Mac laptop
He visited Wokingham, Berks, in 1996 for the stag party of his half-sister's fiancé, but left when a stripper arrived
He was given the code name "Renegade" by his Secret Service handlers
He was known as Barry until university when he asked to be addressed by his full name
He was known as "O'Bomber" at high school for his skill at basketball
He was nicknamed "Bear" by his late grandmother
He wears $1,500 (£952) Hart Schaffner Marx suits
He won a Grammy in 2006 for the audio version of his memoir, Dreams From My Father
He worked in a Baskin-Robbins ice cream shop as a teenager and now can't stand ice cream
He would have liked to have been an architect if he were not a politician
His daughters' ambitions are to go to Yale before becoming an actress (Malia, 10) and to sing and dance (Sasha, 7)
His desk in his Senate office once belonged to Robert Kennedy
His favorite fictional television programmes are Mash and The Wire
His favourite artist is Pablo Picasso
His favourite book is Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
His favourite drink is black forest berry iced tea
His favourite films are Casablanca and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
His favourite meal is wife Michelle's shrimp linguini
His favourite music includes Miles Davis, Bob Dylan, Bach and The Fugees
His favourite snacks are chocolate-peanut protein bars
His house in Chicago has four fire places
His late father was a senior economist for the Kenyan government
His name means "one who is blessed" in Swahili
His speciality as a cook is chilli
While on the campaign trail he refused to watch CNN and had sports channels on instead