Barack Obama: The 50 facts you might not know

• Applied to appear in a black pin-up calendar while at Harvard but was rejected by the all-female committee.

• As a teenager he took drugs including marijuana and cocaine

• Ate dog meat, snake meat, and roasted grasshopper while living in Indonesia

• Can bench press an impressive 200 lbs

• Can speak Spanish

• Carries a tiny Madonna and child statue & a bracelet belonging to a soldier in Iraq for good luck

• Collects Spider-Man & Conan the Barbarian comics

• Daughter Malia's godmother is Jesse Jackson's daughter Santita

• Desk in his Senate office once belonged to Robert Kennedy

• Doesn't drink coffee and rarely drinks alcohol

• Drives a Ford Escape Hybrid, having ditched his gas-guzzling Chrysler 300

• Enjoys playing Scrabble and poker

• Favorite artist is Pablo Picasso

• Favorite book is Moby-Dick by Herman Melville

• Favorite drink is black forest berry iced tea

• Favorite fictional television programs are Mash and The Wire

• Favorite films are “Casablanca” and “One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest”

• Favorite meal is wife Michelle's shrimp linguini

• Favorite music includes Miles Davis, Bob Dylan, Bach and The Fugees

• Favorite snacks are chocolate-peanut protein bars

• Has his hair cut once a week by his Chicago barber, Zariff, who charges $21 (£13)

• Has read every Harry Potter book

• Has said many of Friends in Indonesia were "street urchins"

• Hates the youth trend for trousers which sag beneath the backside

• He and Michelle made $4.2 million (£2.7 million) last year, with much coming from sales of his books

• He uses an Apple Mac laptop

• He’s left-handed – the sixth post-war president to be left-handed

• His daughters' ambitions are to go to Yale before becoming an actress (Malia, 10) and to sing and dance (Sasha, 7)

• His late father was a senior economist for the Kenyan government

• His name means "one who is blessed" in Swahili

• His specialty as a cook is chili

• House in Chicago has four fire places

• Keeps on his desk a carving of a wooden hand holding an egg, a Kenyan symbol of the fragility of life

• Kept a pet ape called Tata while in Indonesia

• Known as "O'Bomber" at high school for his skill at basketball

• Owns a set of red boxing gloves autographed by Muhammad Ali

• Owns four identical pairs of black size 11 shoes

• Plans to install a basketball court in the White House grounds

• Promised Michelle he would quit smoking before running for president – he didn't

• Repaid his student loan only four years ago after signing his book deal

• Says his worst habit is constantly checking his BlackBerry

• Took Michelle to see the Spike Lee film “Do The Right Thing” on their first date

• Visited Wokingham, Berks, in 1996 for the stag party of his half-sister's fiancé, but left when a stripper arrived

• Was given the code name "Renegade" by his Secret Service handlers

• Was known as Barry until university when he asked to be addressed by Full name

• Was nicknamed "Bar" by his late grandmother

• Wears $1,500 (£952) Hart Schaffner Marx suits

• While on the campaign trail he refused to watch CNN and had sports channels on instead

• Won a Grammy in 2006 for the audio version of his memoir, Dreams From My Father

• Worked in a Baskin-Robbins ice cream shop as a teenager and now can't stand ice cream

• Would have liked to have been an architect if he were not a politician