Lucky Exes & Less Lucky Kids

Yesterday, very early on (about ten past midnight) I learnt that Katy Carmichael (a.k.a. Twist from Spaced) went out with David Walliams for five years. She must have thought she was the one destined to make it big when Spaced came along - alas, it was not to be, as the length of their respective Wikipedia pages will testify. They both attended Bristol University in the late eighties, along with Simon Pegg and Jessica Stevenson. What gives? In my year at Uni there were barely four people I didn't totally despise...

Anyway, on to something completely different (who can believe I haven't used that one before?). Only one child in twenty is born on the day predicted by the doctor. Contrary to pretty much every other event in my entire life, I was early for my birth - scheduled to arrive on the 12th August, I rolled up on the 10th (cheques and cards in the post, it's coming soon). I was thus born on a Wednesday, making me full of woe (well, who wouldn't be, with the credit crunch and all) rather than Friday, which would have made me loving and giving (nicely dodged, then). If it were Anglo-Saxon times, however (go with me on this) then all I would have been giving was my life - all babies born on Friday were slaughtered, as it was seen as unlucky. And I thought I was full of woe...

Twice Nightly

<< Whiteley: "TWICE?"

Some days, you just take what you can get. So here's Sunday's effort: Heineken was first brewed in 1873. I read it off the label, I ain't gonna go check it now cos Dragon's Den is on, what are you gonna do about it?

Moving on, and onto something else that's been around for centuries - Countdown. Not only that, but the show's recent travails have left a bitter taste in the mouth (seamless). That's right, the game show that taxes the parts other shows can't reach is on the rocks at present, with Des and Vorders storming out of the show under threat of massive pay cuts. To be honest, it's never been the same since Richard Whiteley went to the great numbers board in the sky - if the nation's old people could just stretch far enough to reach that remote, ratings would have plummeted. Richard Whiteley was given the nickname "Twice Nightly" because he used to have two shows on Yorkshire TV each night - Calendar, and Calendar Countdown, which later moved to Channel 4 and became Countdown itself. I had always thought that this was a libellous suggestion about his sexual prowess. Now there's a mental image for you - two from the top and three at the bottom, I'm guessing...

Common Names and Wacky Crimes

<< How Not to Disappear Discreetly, Page 1, Exhibit A

Last night I was too busy being all cool and in London to do the blog, ruining my hot streak of 5 successive days where I've summoned up the energy to post something. I did learn, however, that there are 24 places called Barton in the UK, so it wasn't an altogether wasted evening. Our friend comes from one such Barton, which is, I dunno, up North somewhere, and she assures us that it is the best one. I learnt the other day that my home town of Devizes, Wiltshire has a namesake in Kansas. Devizes is latin for 'the gates', as the town once had a gate at each entrance, to stop the millions of people just desperate to visit it. Barton means, um, town with a bar in it, I imagine.

And so on to today, and an interesting fact relating to the bizarre story of canoe-based magic act John and Anne Darwin, who managed to pull off a disappearance trick that lasted a good five years. The cover of the Mirror late this year which featured the couple, who at that stage were not under suspicion following John Darwin's bizarre reappearance, grinning in the sales office of a Panama condo block, was perhaps the finest image printed all year. It was the start of the monumental collapse of a laughable, yet surprisingly successful, attempt by the couple to fake someone's death - a process known as pseudocide. That's not what they've been banged up for - no, that would be embezzlement and deception on a mind-boggling scale. Good luck to 'em.

Fact Me 'Til I Fart

As you may have noticed, I've been writing down one thing I've learned each day for the past seven-and-a-bit months, but the truth is that I usually learn a lot more than that in your average day - and today was as average as it gets. To celebrate, here is a dispassionate list of stuff I have learnt:

1. Dostoevsky is spelt Dostoevsky, not Dostoyevsky as I had thought.

2. 'Crime and Punishment' is about a crime, and the related punishment.

3. The weekly team meeting has been cancelled.

4. If you want extra cheese in your Reggae Reggae sub, it'll cost you 30p extra.

5. The Primark in Wandsworth's Southside centre carries an overwhelming aroma of B.O.

6. The Primark in Wandsworth is closed to those trying to enter the store a full quarter of an hour before the actual closing time, even if you're only nipping in to get some boxer shorts.

7. The 44 bus from Wandsworth to Tooting Broadway takes longer than advertised on the timetable.

8. The Pepsi Max draught pump in Tooting KFC has run out of syrup.

9. My old uni mates' band have made a video, with proper acting and everything. It looks like it cost more than Dizzee Rascal's video, which is a bit weird.

10. The rented DVD of 30 Days of Night is officially copyable.

11. As a siren approaches then moves away, it sounds to the ear as though the pitch changes. This is known as the Doppler Effect.

I thank you.

I Just Finished a Book

<< Pullman: Dark

Today I finished reading The Amber Spyglass, the third of Philip Pullman's 'His Dark Materials' trilogy. I'm now in a slightly awkward position, as I'd love to talk at length about it, but will spoil it for anyone who hasn't read it. Anyway, it's very good - the trilogy was collectively voted the third best novel of all time, behind Geri Halliwell's books for kids. Or it may have been Lord of the Rings and Pride & Prejudice, I don't remember.

While that might be pushing it, it was definitely gripping, and has occupied me so intently during recent commutes that it's going to be a shock actually remembering anything about the journey. If you've been through Clapham Junction lately and have seen an egg-shaped individual waddling through the crowd with a Pullman tome pressed to his face, tripping over old ladies and small children as they desperately try to figure out what the fuck is going on, and what's with the thing, and why did that guy go there... well, that was me. Now I'm just gonna have to go back to scowling at people again.

Pantalaimon's name is taken from St. Pantalaemon, whose name is Greek for 'all-helping'.

That will mean a lot to people who've read 'His Dark Materials', and precious little to those who haven't. A bit like this post then - good job I chose a popular book, I guess...

Tour de Facts

<< Mark Cavendish: "Ah, what's the point?"

It's a fine summer's day today, and while we British may have nothing better to do than swelter in offices while our youths slip away on the balmy breeze, across the Channel, millions of people find the time to stand at the foot of a mountain and whoop at passing cyclists. That's right, the Tour de France is in full swing - we were but two hours away by car whilst on holiday, but driving to watch the world's greatest cycle race seemed a bit off. Initially, my burgeoning enjoyment of le Tour felt like the final passage into irretrievable sporting geekdom, but I have since realised that I'm way past that point already, and anyway, there's a lot to love.

For one, there's the lovely scenery - better than the fat builders' convention that passes for a backdrop at a football match anyway. Secondly, there's the fact that it may be the hardest sports event on Earth to win - a British rider, Mark Cavendish, has won four stages at this year's Tour, yet was so monumentally far from victory that he decided to pack it in altogether. Finally, you get a jumper for winning stuff. I wish my work did that - a polka dot sweater for the neatest filing cabinet drawer would really boost morale. The one down side, of course, is that some bad apples like to get a little boost from the lab, and in fact, entire teams are sometimes put under suspicion, and removed from the race, subsequently casting a shadow of foul play over each and every participant. Never mind that, just look at the mountains.



Speaking of which (wow, this is segueing like a proper sports report - just call me John Inverdale without the dubious racial stereotypes; John for short) the peloton (they have a made-up word for the group of riders - that's almost as cool as Skull Man) are heading towards the Alps, and the peaks, which are all known as 'cols'. Col de Cousteau, Col de Mangetout, Col de Johnny Halliday, they're all there. I had thought this had meant 'mountain' or 'peak', forgetting about Page 1 of my 'Parlez-vouz Francais?' textbook, which would have informed me that mountain is of course 'mont'. This is what 'col' means:



'Col' is the French word for a mountain pass.



The cols that the riders have to conquer are graded from 1 to 4, 1 being the most treacherous, except that the very hardest climbs are rated as being higher than 1, which seems fairly ridiculous, given that the purpose of any grading system is to cover from the biggest to the smallest. Have the mountains grown since the system came into being? Unbelievable. The most frequently traversed pass in Tour history is the Col du Tourmalet in the Pyrenees, which has been climbed 47 times in all, and stands very much 'hors categorie' at 2km above sea level. The idea of climbing it on a pushbike and then careening down the other side of it sounds more like punishment than sport to me, but each to their own.

Skull Man

Glory be, my fellow questers (I'm sure you're still out there, somewhere) - I am now a published writer. It may only be an article, and one of questionable quality, but it's out there, on the interweb, just waiting for a publishing supremo to read it, shrug wearily and move on. This is genuinely surprisingly swift progress, given my sluggish work rate and faltering ambition, and I'm sufficiently gushing with pride to post the link to it right here. Please feel free to StumbleUpon, Digg, etc it to within an inch of its life.

Back to reality, and there's no need to trawl the depths of the internet for any more blue whale riffs - I have in my hand a fact, passed to me by a colleague with an (admittedly unexpected) understanding of Japanese:

The Japanese writing on my T-shirt says 'Skull Man'.

This seems entirely logical, given that the ice-cool character perched atop the script is indeed a man, with a white, featureless head not unlike a skull. I am, however, slightly disappointed. I think I preferred the mystery, imagining that it was a piece of writing taken from a street sign, and said 'Toilets 100yds' or ' Free Mobile Phones this way'. To discover it merely offers an accurate, yet non-illuminating description of the mysterious figure above it has somewhat taken the shine off. Besides, if it had said Skull Man in English, there's no way I would have bought it. At least the Skull Man himself remains resolutely badass, arms folded, literally defying translation. Skull Man, I have just discovered to my delight, is a manga character from the 70s, and is (what else) a cold-hearted, lightning-fast anti-hero. Skull Man is way cool.

Weekend: All Creatures Great and Small

<< "Make some noise!"

If you're settling down in front of the computer with a nice cup of tea and your confection of choice (may I recommend a Double Decker? Fine, suit yourself) here's a fact for you, learnt at the start of a glorious, now moribund weekend:

The average chocolate bar has eight insect legs in it.

Apparently, it's all to do with the cocoa collection process, and is in no way connected to the shoddy conditions down at the factory. Anyway, from the animal kingdom's more insignificant members - and let's face it, you can't get much lower than having your remains scattered throughout a 24-bar box of Toffee Crisps - to it's mightiest overlord. I'm talking, of course, about Brian Blessed. Sorry, the blue whale. Now we all know that blue whales are big fellas - their hearts are the size of a VW Beetle, a human could crawl through it's aorta, and each one is the same length as, I dunno, Belgium. It's usually Belgium. You may think of them as big, but they're also loud. In fact:

Blue whales are the loudest animals on Earth.

They holler at a frequency of 10 to 40HZ, making them virtually inaudible to the human ear, but there's no living thing that's louder, although our Brian does push them close, as do the urbane sophisticates who drive past Knowledge Towers on a Sunday playing only the finest in house and garage at a bone-juddering volume. As far as I'm aware, a blue whale has never been accidentally encased in chocolate and retailed, but if they did, I reckon I could take it.

Apropros of Nothing

It's time for another lazy round-up, so normally I'd be warning you to brace yourselves for a volley of jaw-droppingly seamless links between each day's topic. Alas, whichever way I look at it, I am burdened with three pieces of information that have absolutely nothing to do with each other. Nevertheless, I shall soldier on - so brace yourselves for a volley of jaw-droppingly clunky and ineffective links...

First up it's Wednesday, worst of all days, carrying within its cloud of midweek drudgery a point of minor interest - the word 'zebra' comes from the portugese 'zevra', which means wild ass (as in a feral donkey, not as in 'that was a wild ass party' - although if a feral donkey was involved, it probably was). Now (here comes the first clanger) if you were walking towards, oh, let's say, Big Ben, you might cross a zebra crossing to get there. When you get there, if you happen to be carrying a transistor radio and tune into the news, you'll hear the chimes on the radio before you hear them in real life. This may well be because the bongs are pre-recorded, but whatever, that's the fact and I'm sticking to it.

You may have noticed that the end of the last paragraph was pretty decisive - in fact, you might say I nailed my colours to the mast (here we go again). During a chat tonight with actual real people, this phrase came up and I promptly scurried back into my Wikipedia lair to find out where it came from. I know you're dying to find out. It's a nautical term (isn't everything?) which relates to ships refusing to take down their flag. Taking down the ship's flag was a sign that you were surrendering, and if you felt particularly strongly about not doing so, or were concerned that once you ran out of fags you might be tempted, a couple of nails was guaranteed to keep that baby flyin' high. As for a link from such triumph and defiance back down to the seedy shame of this blog, I'm stumped.

Lefties

<< Che Guevara: Not left-handed, and it tore him up inside

I got my fact at ten past midnight last night, during Seinfeld episode "The Checks", when Seinfeld holds his aching writing hand having had to sign several hundred Japanese royalty cheques, each for 12 cents. I wasn't aware you had to sign cheques for yourself in America, but to be honest, I'm not certain you don't have to do that in this country, so I'm keeping quiet. The following discovery at least allowed me a day's grace from having to peruse the hellstorm of fear and inanity that is Metro:

Jerry Seinfeld is left-handed.

Other famous lefties include (behold this staggering list): Leonardo da Vinci, Robert de Niro, Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, Einstein, Matt Groening, John McEnroe, Jimmy White, Chewbacca, Pele, Maradona, Churchill, Julius Caesar, Aristotle, Joan of Arc, Neil Armstrong, Napoleon, Beadle, Ross Kemp, Wossy, Bowie, Kurt Cobain, Eminem, Jimi Hendrix and, best 'til last, Ricky Martin.

Seinfeld actually began his comedy career with a skit to college 'roomies' about being left-handed and the unfortunate connotations that go with it: "left-handed compliment, ... you get to a party, ask where everyone went - they left". I myself am not left-handed, which is a source of deep-seated disappointment to my girlfriend. I am, however, left-footed when I play football, which she understandably considers to be "not the same".

Maybe Tomorrow, I'll Wanna Settle Down...

<< My work's next green initiative

I think it may be time to go travelling again soon - I need to escape this isle before the ants take over, judging by the myriad displays of idiocy I have witnessed today. Firstly, the guard on the morning train (which I took prior to working 9 to 5, before taking another home again to find a number of chores waitin' for me) asked a guy to leave the train. The guy said no. The guard got off, mooched a while, and then let the train leave. I didn't know whether to be worried or give the guy a telepathic high five for having the foresight to know they wouldn't force him to leave. He was last seen heading for Twickenham KFC with a smirk on his face.

Meanwhile, my workplace have recently been introducing 'green initiatives', which is highly commendable. The trouble is, the vast majority are counter-productive - for instance, I arrived back from holiday to find a recycled coaster on my desk. Very nice, and very ecological, except I never had a coaster before, so it's hardly an energy saver. I entirely appreciate the gesture, but there's a small problem - during my week away, they've also installed an LCD TV, size fuck-off large, in the middle of the office, which displays a constant stream of pithy 'motivational messages'. If the green initiative continues at this rate, we'll be emptying our toner cartridges in the local pond by Friday.

Of course, some places are in possession of greater doofuses than the UK - not that I'm going to name names. This list of travel-related anecdotes, namely from a nameless nation, demonstrates this point quite nicely, and also taught me this:

Orlando, Florida is not on a coastline.

It does, however, have Disneyland, which puts it up in my top five places to go while I'm stuck in the office, somewhere between the pub and home. It may lack the eco-friendly vibe of other resorts, but the security's a lot tighter than South West Trains...

A Load of Boules

<< Mont St. Michel - fact-free and proud of it

And so, I have returned from distant lands (well, 20 miles from Cherbourg) with a clutch of facts, desperately snatched from any English-language source I could find, usually with just minutes to spare. I've only got an hour to find a fact for today, so we'd better get started:

On Saturday, my Bob Dylan ignorance was exposed yet again, as my brother informed me that 'All Along The Watchtower''s lyrics are in reverse order. Sunday, meanwhile, revealed shameful ignorance of a different kind, as we discovered after a whistle-stop tour of the bars of Normandy, that the men's Wimbledon singles final isn't shown on French TV. Upon entering the first establishment and uttering 'le tennis sur le tele?', we were greeted with an ominously blank look. In the end, we resorted to experiencing perhaps the greatest tennis match in history through a Radio 5 broadcast that sounded like it was coming from a bunker deep within Communist Russia, as phrases such as "this is beyond mere sport - this is a war" and "tears are literally rolling down my cheeks - what a volley" leaked through the fuzzy speakers. Ah well.

Monday brought the slightly less exciting news that Anya is a type of potato, rather than a way of cooking said potato. Moving swiftly on, on Tuesday we visited Mont St. Michel, a delightful place but sadly devoid of facts - there was in fact no information whatsoever on its history, which I almost respect. It's as if it's sitting there on the cusp of the Channel, defying you to question its existence. Good shops also. In the end, I resorted to a dusty copy of the Eden Project guide, found in the back of my mum's car, which told me that 40% of terrestrial organisms live in treetops.

The next two days' facts were gleaned from the Ultimate Book of Trivia, a weighty tome which really can be judged by its cover. On Wednesday I learnt that Caesar salad is not named after Julius Caesar, but that caesarian section is named after his son, um, Caesarian. I kind of like that idea - any son of mine will be called Niallian - poor little bastard. On Thursday, meanwhile, I unearthed (struggling to find different ways of saying learnt now) that Pas de Calais, the name given to the very north of France, is the French term for the Dover Strait. Whilst perusing the pages of the trivia book, I also came across a question on Frida from Abba's nationality. I intended to use this, until I read the answer: Swedish. Ah. Then, in a frankly bizarre coincidence, whilst sailing close to the Dover Strait on the ferry back on Friday night, I read in a review of Mamma Mia: The Movie (have you seen the poster? The horror) that Frida from Abba is the daughter of a Nazi soldier and a Norwegian mother. My faith in the Ultimate Book of Trivia is irreparably shaken.

Yesterday, upon returning to Blighty, I learnt that dyspraxia is a condition which affects your hand-eye co-ordination. Anyone who ever witnessed my attempt at running the egg-and-spoon race will know that this isn't a strong point of mine, and I'm now convinced I have it. I plan to miss several days of work as a result of my new-found condition. And so, to tonight. I was sans fact until I opened an e-mail from my brother, linking to a website called 'Women of Strength' that he claims to have Stumbled Upon. There are a number of useful facts, but I'm plumping for the entirely irrelevant news that St. John was the only one of the 12 Apostles to die a natural death. With that mammoth fact-o-rama out of the way, I'm off to celebrate with a baguette, a glass of duty-free wine and a quick game of boules - though I may lose again, as a result of my dyspraxia, of course...

Au Revoir

<< A French chemist, yesterday

Off to France tomorrow, so there'll be a fact-shaped hole on this site for the next week - although I'll update on my all my facts francais when I return. To roll with the Gallic theme, here's today's offering:

Chemistry was invented in France.

Having spent three hours packing, I really don't have time to go into the finer details, except that it again came from the glorious Observer Book of Invention. More specifically, it's part of a feature on the most inventive nation - based on how many of the 'top hundred' inventions each nation can lay claim to. France doesn't exactly excel, clocking up 3, the other two being pasteurisation and, uh, Petits Filous, or something.

China is top of the tree with 19, with the UK just one invention behind on 18. Once my idea for a remote control that dispenses Milk Duds hits the ground, it'll be level-pegging. Russia's only entry is the periodic table, which does kind of rain on France's parade - inventing chemistry but not coming up with the periodic table seems a bit like inventing the car, but letting another country get the patent in on the engine.

The endless, merciless learning will recommence next Sunday. Until then...

Midweek Madness: Great Minds, Nasty Knights and Bad Actors

On Tuesday I turned, surely not for the last time, to the nifty free Book of Invention, given away with Sunday's Observer. I only bought the paper to get the book, and only got the book to guarantee a few cheap facts. I'm basically paying for facts now - I'm a John of learning. Anyway, this baby got facts, with all manner of interesting sections. I plumped for a passage about inventions named after their creators - Biro being an obvious example. I also learnt that not only was Braille invented by a guy named Braille, but that Monsieur Braille was himself blind (perhaps not surprising) and invented the system when he was just 15 (wowsers).

To Wednesday, and from great minds overcoming adversity, to dangerous minds spawned from greatness. If you'll forgive the weighty introduction, I'm talking about honorary knighthoods, most notably the one handed out to Robert Mugabe, and rather sheepishly withdrawn last week. I wonder what it was that tipped the scales - he's only been destroying the nation he illegally rules for a decade or so, after all. Perhaps a temp was asked to dust off the file and check that all honorary knighthoods were still legit - you can picture the scene. "Wogan - well he's still pulling in listeners; Bill Gates - bit weird, but I'll let it slide... Robert Mu... oh SHIT". What's amazing is it's not the first time a dictator's been able to sit in his war room polishing up a nice shiny medal - both Caucescu and Mussolini were awarded honorary knighthoods (both were later withdrawn, but that's hardly the point). It makes the excuse of removing Saddam to justify the Iraq war even more laughable, if that was possible...

On to Thursday now, and an attempt to carve out yet another tenuous link... you may have seen some headlines relating to Mugabe or his Zanu-PF party, only using the nation of Zimbabwe to represent them i.e. "Zimbabwe to West: Get off my dick"; "Zimbabwe comments just not cricket" etc etc. Anyway, this is known as a synecdoche. A synecdoche is a term which uses a part of something to describe its whole, or the whole of something to describe one part of it. Examples - "Nice wheels" (wheels meaning car) and "Use your head" (head meaning brain). Saying you want a Coke when you just want a fizzy drink is also an example, though why you'd ever want a drink other than cool, refreshing, flavourful Coke is beyond me (pop the cheque in the post lads).

I found this word courtesy of Empire magazine, which ran a feature on Charlie Kaufmann's new film, Synecdoche, New York. In what sounds like a plot literally picked piece-by-piece out of a hat, Philip Seymour Hoffmann builds a model of New York in a warehouse. I know, it sounds rubbish, but the guy made a film where walking trellis Nicholas Cage plays two different characters, and it was actually quite good, even if it fell apart like Gasquet in the fifth set. And the tenuous links go on...