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"British gem Adele is never off the radio and now her pregnancy with boyfriend Simon Konecki has been announced she is due more coverage than ever.  Although we know her songs like the back of our hand, just how much else do we know about 24-year-old Adele? Here are ten fast facts about the woman whose album from January 2011 is somehow the highest-selling record of 2012 so far. 1. Adele is in the realms of first name status only (Cher, Madonna, et al), but is actually called Adele Laurie Blue Adkins. 2. The singer stumbled on her influences Etta James and Dusty Springfield when she was looking for a new hairstyle in the Classics section of HMV. But why was she looking in a record store for a haircut? 3. Adele&amp;#039;s first taste of the limelight was when she performed Gabrielle&amp;#039;s song &amp;#039;Rise&amp;#039; at her school. Reportedly her mum made her a sparkly eye patch to look more like the singer.      4 She wrote her debut album 19 when she was 19, and follow-up 21 when she was 21. Hmm, maybe there&amp;#039;s a pattern emerging here... 5. She had throat microsurgery in 2011, and was advised to give up smoking. But she is quoted as saying: &amp;quot;Smoking is my favourite thing to do in the world.&amp;quot; Will there be a Stacey Solomon-style uproar now that she&amp;#039;s pregnant? 6. Adele well and truly smashed America with an appearance on Saturday Night Live and a cameo role on Ugly Betty. Oh, and she became the first female singer to top the artist, album and singles list in the same year (2011) on the US Billboard charts. Her album 21, rather fittingly, spent 21 weeks at the top of the charts, which means that she spent 40% of the past year as America&amp;#039;s #1 album.      7. Adele has claimed that she is at "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/showbiz/10-things-about/news/a391086/ten-things-about-adele/>