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