50 things you might not know about US president-elect Obama

  In school he introduced himself as Barry, his idol is Stevie Wonder, he was an excellent basketball player and he received a Grammy in 2006. These are just some of the personal facts to emerge about the current most famous and powerful man in the world, Barack Obama.

 • 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

ʥ He visited Wokingham, Berks, in 1996 for the stag party of his half-sister's fianc̩, 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