2. When paying for a taxi, don't look at your wallet as you take out a note. Just grab one out at random and hand it over. It will always be the exact fare.

3. Television news bulletins usually contain a story that affects you personally at the precise moment it's aired.

4. Creepy music (or satanic chanting) coming from a graveyard should always be closely investigated.

5. Any lock can be picked with a credit card or paperclip in seconds. UNLESS it's the door to a burning building with a child inside.

6. If you decide to start dancing in the street, everyone you bump into will know all the steps.

7. All bombs are fitted with electronic timing devices with large red digital displays so you know exactly when they are going to explode.

9. Once applied, lipstick will never rub off. Even while scuba diving.

10. The Eiffel Tower can be seen from any window of any building in Paris.

12. Getaway cars never start on the first try. But all cop cars do. (They will also slide to a dramatic stop in the midst of a crime scene).

13. If staying in a haunted house, women should investigate any strange noises wearing their most revealing underwear.

14. On a police stake-out, the action will only ever take place when food is being consumed and scalding hot coffees are perched precariously on the dashboard . . .

15. All grocery shopping involves the purchase of French loaves which will be placed in open brown paper bags (Caveat: when said bags break, only fruit will spill out).

16. Cars never need fuel (unless they're involved in a pursuit).

17. If you are heavily outnumbered in a fight involving martial arts, your opponents will wait patiently to attack you one by one by dancing around you in a threatening manner until you have defeated their predecessor.

18. If a microphone is turned on it will immediately feedback.

19. Guns are like disposable razors. If you run out of bullets, just throw the gun away...you will always find another one.

20. All single women have a cat.

21. Cars will explode instantly when struck by a single bullet.

22. No matter how savagely a spaceship is attacked, its internal gravity system is never damaged.

23. If being chased through a city you can usually take cover in a passing St Patrick's Day parade - at any time of the year.

24. The ventilation system of any building is the perfect hiding place. Nobody will ever think of looking for you in there and you can travel to any other part of the building undetected.

25. You will survive any battle in any war UNLESS you show someone a picture of your sweetheart back home.

26. Prostitutes always look like Julia Roberts or Jamie Lee Curtis. They have expensive clothes and nice apartments but no pimps. They are friendly with the shopkeepers in their neighbourhood who don't mind at all what the girl does for a living.

27. A single match is usually sufficient to light up a room the size of a football stadium.

28. It is not necessary to say "Hello" or "Goodbye" when beginning a telephone conversation. A disconnected call can always be restored by frantically beating the cradle and saying "Hello? Hello?" repeatedly.

29. One man shooting at 20 men has a better chance of killing them all than 20 men firing at once (it's called Stallone's Law).

30. When you turn out the light to go to bed, everything in your room will still be visible, just slightly bluish.

32. Rather than wasting bullets, megalomaniacs prefer to kill their enemies with complicated devices incorporating fuses, pulleys, deadly gases, lasers and man-eating sharks.

33. All beds have special L-shaped sheets that reach to armpit level on a woman but only up to the waist of the man lying beside her.

34. Anyone can land a 747 as long as there is someone in the control tower to talk you down.

35. During all police investigations it will be necessary to visit a strip club at least once.

36. You can always find a chainsaw when you need one.

37. Most musical instruments (especially wind instruments and accordions) can be played without moving your fingers.

38. In Middle America, all gas station attendants have red handkerchiefs hanging out of their back pockets.

39. All teen house parties have one of every stereotypical subculture present (even people who aren't liked and would never get invited to parties).

40. Trucks use their horns at random (no hang on, that happens in real life too!).