Freak Day

When I embarked on this journey to spend a whole year learning something new every day, I felt that 365 new facts was a realistic goal. I forgot, however, about the pesky freak day that is February 29th. That's right, today's fact is a freebie, a rogue truth that I had failed to budget for in my charts. If I collapse from mental and physical exhaustion (in other words, laziness) on December 30th, you'll know why. I'm not someone who likes to deviate from the bare minimum - it's bad enough that, technically, I didn't even get paid to go to work today.

Luckily, Freak Day (as I have renamed it) does serve some useful purpose, as it has provided me with a plethora of fact. This site alone has about 30 links for the lonely, embittered people unlucky enough to be born on the 29th; unsurprisingly, they're making a pretty big deal out of today. One of my work colleagues had a baby at 10 past midnight this morning - she had expressly said that she didn't want the poor sprog to be born on Freak Day, although I tried to point out the savings she'd make on presents. Not only will this kid get just 4 proper birthdays before they leave home, it seems that, like their fellow leaplings, it will also be subjected to an adult life beset with administrative difficulties. Still, I'm sure there's some positives - still pretending to be 9 when you're heading into your forties, presumably.

Anyway, on to my fact:

1900 was not a leap year.

Now, this may not sound that remarkable - most years aren't, after all. 1900, however, should have been a leap year, as it is divisible by four, but wasn't because it is also divisible by 100. 2000 was a leap year because (bear with me) it is divisible by 400. So prospective leap years are spared the ignominy of an extra day if they are the first in a new century, with an exception every four centuries. This, apparently, is the best system they could come up with. Children born in 1896 did not get a birthday until 1904, when they would have been eight years old. Still, things improved ten years later when they dodged conscription for having not yet reached their 4th birthday.

An Absence of As and My English Degree

I've returned to The Book of Lists today because facts have been at a premium all week - I think everyone's brains have regressed into a torpor that only allows basic bodily functions, without allowing the capacity to consider the possibility of another month of stinking winter. Anyway, this is the best I could do today:

A lipogram is the name given to a piece of writing that intentionally omits a particular letter.

Some famous examples include Gyles Brandreth's versions of Shakespeare's plays which each omit certain letters (Hamlet was redone without a single 'I' in it), and Jacques Arago, who wrote a book entitled 'Voyage Around the World Without The Letter A' - regrettably, it contains one instance of the letter A - in the word 'serait' which, weirdly linking back to Brandreth, roughly translates as 'to be'. There are some staggering examples of lipograms in action, including a 2001 novel about a nation outlawing letters, where as a letter is outlawed, it disappears from the novel altogether. As I'm sure the likes of Tom Paulin and Will Self would agree, that's pretty sweet.

There's also the more famous novel 'Gadsby', which includes 50 thousand words and not one instance of the letter E. This rang a bell, but I thought that it was 'The Great Gatsby'. I did an English degree you know. I'm employing those trusty skills in this very article, in fact, as I have craftily been constructing a lithogram of my own... Though you may not have realised it, this entry does not contain a single instance of the letter X. Apart from that one.

Whole Lot of Shakin' Goin' On

< Jeffrey Archer's polygraph results were off the scale

The nation awoke today to the news that the biggest earthquake in 25 years had just rocked our collective worlds; interestingly, I slept right through it, though it seems the Midlands had it bad - a grand total of 1 chimney fell over. It's not quite living on the San Andreas Faultline, is it? We're pretty lucky in this country in that even notable earthquakes barely shake the leaves off the trees - even our biggest rumble didn't amount to much:

The largest earthquake ever recorded in the UK happened in 1931, and measured 6.1 on the Richter Scale; the epicentre was near the Dogger Bank in the North Sea, 120km north-east of Norfolk.

Apparently it registered as far afield as Scandinavia; I wondered if it prompted the lame 'did the earth move for you?' double entendres splashed across all the papers today (you'll notice I've stretched for a different pun to title this entry, and have perhaps fallen short). Incidentally, the Dogger Bank is absolutely massive, and is the remains of the land that used to join Britain to mainland Europe. I'd imagine there are a few Mail readers who'd soil themselves just thinking about that. Dogger is also the second sandbank to feature in QFK, which slightly concerns me as I was hoping to focus on slightly funkier issues than expanses of empty, wet sand surrounded by sea. Still, there's always tomorrow...

Going Underground

< A North London ponce, yesterday

I searched high and low today, and in the end discovered, via Claire's work colleague, that:

One of the escalators at Angel tube station is the longest in Western Europe.

To be honest, I think this was nothing more than territorial braying from the north-of-the-river mob she works with. Haven't got Brixton Academy though, have ya? Ha! Although to their credit, they also don't have Brixton in general. Or the soul-sapping crawl down the digestive tract of the Northern Line on their way home.

I've always had a sad obsession with the Tube - the fancy coloured lines, the way the big escalators make your head go funny when you look behind you (though I've never travelled along the Angel one - it's 60 metres long apparently, and hopefully dubbed 'The Eliminator' at the station entrance). My Tube love stems from staying with my sister when I was little - I can still recall her weary mutterings as I demanded to go on the Tube for the fifth day in succession. "But where do you want to go?" "Don't care. Tube time!".

This childlike curiosity survived adult visits to London but has been truly crushed by commuting, although I have noticed that even it's bleary-eyed regulars still maintain an interest: the 'columnist' section of the free paper seems to feature little but people's observati0ns on various mundane aspects of the network. It seems odd to me that to take your mind off being stuck on the Tube, they choose to publish wild-eyed rantings about tourists standing on the left side of the escalators, or people taking more than half a second to go through the barriers when they get off. I thought the idea would be escapism; instead it seems that commuters follow that oddly British tradition of secretly revelling in their torment. Either that, or everyone is secretly thinking - as the train shudders to a halt in a pitch-black tunnel and the lights flicker out - "I'm on the Tube! Wow..."

P.S. I'm sure nobody's read down this far, but just so you know - the longest escalator in the world is at Park Pobedy station, which is not in a kids' TV programme, but is instead in Moscow. It's 126m long, twice the length of anything you'll find in that dump north of the river...

There Will Be Facts

< Insane with jealousy, Kemp set out to give Daniel Day-Lewis another double he won't forget

It was Oscar night last night, and while it has reminded us of a couple of undeniable truths, namely that (a) actors are a bunch of self-satisfied twats who use their 30 seconds to address the watching planet with a volley of drivel so smug it practically oozes out over the microphone. Tilda Swinton (whoever she may be) used her half-minute to tell us how her award statue had an arse like her agent. That's great, now sit the fuck down and pass the award, silently and solemnly, to someone more deserving, like the poor sod who had to clean up Elton and Prince's pre-awards house party. I was also reminded that (b) I don't watch many Oscar-winning films; I can add Juno, There Will Be Blood and No Country For Old Men to the list of statue-hogging epics that I've never sat through - this makes the grand total approximately 3,709. In fact, the only new piece of information that came to light was the following:

Daniel Day-Lewis is English.

Didn't know that, wasn't sure where he was from, and to be honest I never gave it much thought. It's sad to discover that England has in it's possession an actor as good as him, and the bug-eyed walking log that is Ross Kemp has managed to get work. Day-Lewis won his second best actor gong last night, joining the illustrious list of double winners (Marlon Brando, Jack Nicholson, and um... Fredric March). Interestingly, Peter O'Toole has been nominated eight times for best actor, and has never won. Now there's a man who knows how to pretend to look happy - much like Tilda Swinton's agent, who must as we speak be expressing strained joviality as the secret of his perfectly symmetrical, tiny golden posterior is unveiled to the entire world.

Pants on Fire

So there we have it - two weeks away from the computer, and I still managed a fact every day. By the way, if you want proof, I still have the scribblings on my notepad. OK, so technically that's not proof. Anyway, I've spent about three hours typing up my etchings and I'm dying for a Chinese takeaway, so here goes:

John Graham from Cumbria is the world's biggest liar.

That's right, Graham, a 69-year-old imaginatively nicknamed 'Johnny Liar' (a bit like calling David Beckham 'Dave Football') has won the coveted title six times in all, and reclaimed his crown last year with a tall tale about U-boats invading Britain (nice to see he's keeping up with the times). The event takes place at the Santon Bridge Inn in Cumbria, and apparently involves competitors trying to tell the fattest lie they can muster within a five minute time frame.

Sue Perkins, of Light Lunch semi-fame, won the contest in 2006, having turned up to make a documentary about it. Sadly, the tournament has been marred by jingoism in the past, with a South African champion being derided for not being local. It seems they can't quite grasp that being a liar is not actually something to be proud of. If they're looking for homegrown talent, I can think of the ideal contestant, and his specialist subject.

My Holiday, by Niall (aged 24 and a half) - Part Two

Saturday 16th February:
Literally walked up a mountain today - we did get overtaken by pensioners, but I'm still proud. For this week's learning I turned to the nifty 'things we learned this week' feature on Ceefax (ok, BBCi, whatever), which informed me of the following: The UK spends more on cosmetic surgery than France, Germany and Italy put together. The bill runs to £500 million in all, still a long way behind America, who've spent £5.7bn on messing up their faces. All in all, it's a pretty depressing statistic.

Sunday 17th February:
Went on a boat trip across Loch Katrine today; the loch provides all of Glasgow's drinking water, so the boats use biodiesel to keep the boat clean, although I was disappointed to hear our tour guide describe this ethical, eco-friendly compromise as being 'not allowed to use proper fuel'. Anyway, I had an inkling that the lochs supplied drinking water, so I can't really use this. Luckily the crossword book came up trumps again: the word taboo comes from the Polynesian 'tapu' or 'tabu', a word that can mean either sacred or forbidden. It allegedly arrived in the English language thanks to Captain Cook, who sailed to Tonga and offered the natives all manner of food items, only to be repeatedly informed that they were 'tapu', which Cook took to mean culturally forbidden, when it probably just meant bland. Cook then tried to engage the locals in a word play-based board game that he'd brought along, but they weren't having that either.

Monday 18th February:
I learnt today that in the popular song 'you take the high road', the 'low road' actually refers to an imagined road for the dead to return to their place of birth. It was apparently coined during the rebellion of 1745, when one of Bonnie Prince Charlie's soldiers, doomed to execution, is said to have sung it to another. The 'high road' incidentally, is an actual road, so named because there are no low roads anywhere in Scotland - fact.

Tuesday 19th February:
There's a thick fog around the cabin tonight, which got me thinking: what's the difference between mist and fog? I always thought that mist was water vapour and fog was low cloud. I am in fact, both wrong and right - both these beliefs are correct, though I was missing the small yet crucial detail that a cloud is made of water vapour. In fact, the only difference between mist and fog is density. When mist becomes so thick that visibility is less than 1km, it becomes fog. Both are caused by water vapour condensing close to the ground, generally caused by the cooling of the ground beneath it... OK, I can't get my head round that. Let's just say... it's magic.

Wednesday 20th February:
I learnt early this morning (via the gift of WAP) that the expression 'spinning a yarn' comes from naval voyages where sailors would make spun yarn for rope, whilst telling tales to each other. The article I got this from also saw fit to explain the meaning of 'putting the cart before the horse' and 'throwing a spanner in the works', although both phrases seem pretty much self-explanatory. I also learnt today that I have adjusted to the speed of London life: initially, I felt like a lost bumpkin caught in a maelstrom - after experiencing the pedestrian pace of checkout queues in rural Scotland, I actually miss being snippily rushed through my shopping experience.

Thursday 21st February:
The phrase 'the law is an ass' comes from Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens. I didn't know that because I've never read it. I've brought about eight books with me on this holiday and have thus far managed to read three pages of Catch 22. Who needs books when you've got a Wii? We've had it six days and already the long, action-packed days are turning into feral night-long stints of imaginary tennis in the cabin. Wouldn't have it any other way.

Friday 22nd February:
I initially wanted to write about something called Language Processing Disorder, which appears to have something to do with your ability to understand information and instructions. However, after finding that any information about it was entombed in £20 books by dodgy psychologists, I've figured out that it's quite possibly just another thing to make parents feel better about having stupid kids. Instead, I have learnt the following: in Britain, jurors don't have to return to court to witness the sentencing of an individual that they have helped to convict, but can if they so wish. Going home tomorrow. Boo!

Saturday 23rd February:
Back in the big smoke tonight; the fact I learned today actually comes from personal experience, rather than either a pamphlet or Wikipedia, just for a change. Today I learnt that banks are prepared to reimburse you for money that is stolen from your account, and yes, I learnt it the hard way, after finding that £500 has jetted out of our joint account and reappeared at a tropical cashpoint in Casablanca. It happened because someone cloned my card, which I thought only happened in Ocean's Eleven. I'm mainly disappointed because I thought my trick where I put my Oyster card in front of my hand at the cashpoint was watertight. I'm quite impressed that they're prepared to give this money back - I thought that given the choice between them paying or us paying, they'd have gone for the former. Anyway, a magic end to the holiday. Sorry there's no souvenir - I ate it.

My Holiday, by Niall (aged 24 and a half) - Part One

Saturday 9th Feb:
The thing I learned today is that the former Soviet republic of Georgia uses a completely different alphabet to other ex-Soviet states, such as Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, who all use the Cyrillic alphabet. I discovered this from reading the back of a packet of toothpaste, in the toilet of a Travelodge near Wigan at 2.30am. It may be a long two weeks. Have now arrived in Scotland, haven't learnt much else so far; it's prettier and friendlier than England, but then I knew that already.

Sunday 10th Feb:
Claire informed me over breakfast that the tannin in tea inhibits any iron that you take in from food. Also, drinks with high Vitamin C content, such as orange juice, increase the effectiveness of any ingested iron. The effect of IRN-BRU on iron absorption has yet to be investigated.

Monday 11th Feb:
We accidentally found a place called Doune Castle today, whilst trying to find a town with decent shops. We looked it up on our phones like the city idiots we are, only to discover that it features prominently in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The French guard "farts in your general direction" from atop it, and it is used for virtually every exterior castle shot in the film. It's become a tourist attraction for Python fans; the gift shop even has Monty Python books and memorabilia (nice touch) and a replica Holy Grail (too far).

Tuesday 12th Feb:
Today walked up some hills and looked down from the top at Loch Venachar, surrounded by misty, far-off mountains. It was almost pretty enough to make me weep like a baby, but didn't offer up any useless information - perhaps they should introduce a Trivia Trail leading up to the vista. In the end, I turned to a Puzzler book we had in the lodge, which quite pointlessly informed me that the word 'blunder' comes from the Old Norse 'blundra', which means to shut your eyes.

Wednesday 13th Feb:
Whilst watching the sun set over the lake tonight (sorry, trying not to be smug) we wondered what made the sunset all pink and purple. I was amazed to discover that sunsets produce vivid colours because the sunlight reflects off dust and other airborne particles. This doesn't happen during the day because the sun isn't low enough in the sky, and also because dust rises from near the ground to higher in the atmosphere when the sun goes down. Or something. This effect is known as Mie Scattering, and has been demonstrated by increasingly colourful sunsets, although this argument loses credibility by mentioning Krakatoa. How would they know? Did someone find a diary featuring the words: "Family dead. Village destroyed. All is lost. P.S. Sunset a delight"? It seems unlikely.

Thursday 14th Feb:
We've been on the trail of waterfalls so far on our holiday, but were wondering where the biggest ones could be found. Turns out that the biggest waterfall in the UK is Eas a' Chial Aluinn, in the Scottish Highlands. There is some debate about this apparently, and this chart is taken by measuring the longest single waterfall, as opposed to a series of falls. The second and third highest are also in Scotland - Steall and the Falls of Glennoch respectively, though none of the top three are anyway near where we are. Anyway, I could go on but I'm trying to watch Ashes to Ashes.

Friday 15th Feb:
Claire's birthday today - we went to Glencoe and stopped at the worst Visitor Centre ever. If you ever want to know about how they built the Glencoe Visitor Centre, but require no information on Glencoe itself, I suggest you pay it a visit. Whilst taking pictures of the scenery, I got a picture of the sun, but with a black spot in the centre. I looked up why this was happening, and it appears that when you take a photo of the sun on a digital camera, a black spot can come out in the centre of the sun, as the camera cannot process the image due to it's brightness. I thought I'd discovered the solid core of our sun - turns out the only thing I discovered is that my phone needs an upgrade.

So Long, Suckers

This is the end, my only friend, the end. That's right, no more quirky, pointless blogs about the minutae of life. The Quest has ceased to be. For two weeks.



Dry your eyes comrades, I'll be back on the 24th Feb, but tonight I am journeying to a land without internet access (I believe it's called Scotland) for a barely deserved holiday. I'll still be learning something new of course, and I shall report back on my findings when I arrive back in London town. Today has a whirlwind of packing, hoovering and fobbing projects off onto work colleagues, so I need a bread and butter fact i.e. simple to understand, easy to prove and preferably sport-based. Unsurprisingly, Sport magazine (the free paper, not the grotty red-top) informed me of the following:



The new Wembley stadium is the largest all-seater covered arena in the world.



A reminder of England's great achievements in building expensive follies then, before I head over the border. Incidentally, by covered, it means that every seat is sheltered from the elements whether the roof is on or not - although this poor sap may disagree.



See you on the 24th...

Cold Feet and Random Balls

I learnt something new very early today - five past midnight to be exact. It came courtesy of everyone's favourite Teletext time-killer, Bamboozle. For me, Bamboozle brings to mind two things - the day we got Fasttext on our telly and could actually play Bamboozle, which made me feel like my family had suddenly hit the big time; and playing Kids' Bamboozle on a Saturday morning at the age of 17, and realising that my efforts to avoid A-Level revision had reached an all-time desperate low. On this occasion I was trying to extend a drab weekday evening by an extra five minutes, but I learnt something useful. Which is this:

England's first lottery took place in the 16th century.

The lottery, which we can safely assume was not preceded by a drawn out and unnecessary 'Ye Thunderball'-style draw, was put together by the medieval Eamonn Holmes, Queen Elizabeth I, to raise money for England's ailing harbours. Now I've been to Southampton and Portsmouth recently and can only assume that the money went on outlet stores and big ASDAs, rather than any proper regeneration work. Prizes in the Tudor tombola were money and tapestry. Pity the poor bastard who saved up all his groats for a ticket and 'won' a woven portrayal of the battle of Agincourt.

Lotteries have been crushing dreams for a couple of millennia, and are apparently even mentioned in the Bible, which probably reads something like "fall not into the temptation of wasteful gambling, except for this Sabbath, when it's a TRIPLE ROLLOVER!" I don't do the lottery much: I can still remember the predictable yet crushing disappointment when my dad's 'dead cert' ticket failed to deliver on the National Lottery's opening night. I think the atrocious ads have also played their part - the sight of her off Cold Feet talking to a camp Irish unicorn actually made me want to give money away in protest. I did go in for a recent Euro Millions uber-rollover, but having purchased my ticket I looked back at the queue and realised my chances were slim enough of having the best ticket out of the people in the shop at that moment. How could I take on the population of France? As the existence of this blog attests, I fell woefully short.

Paranoid & Delusional and Geri Halliwell

< Halliwell's lame LP: The title roughly translates as 'broken noise'

I had training today, which is always a good opportunity to pick up some useless information - I can sense the trainer's bemusement as I scribble down the entire list of opening trivial gambits they dole out, and then stare blankly at the window through the course material proper. Anyway, the course was all about people's mental health or lack of it, and there were plenty of brain facts that my brain, who really should have known already, could barely comprehend. Like most body-related stuff, it involved astronomical figures - we each have 100 billion nerve cells in our brain apparently. How could anything be small enough to fit inside a human brain 100 billion times? Apart from Pierce Brosnan's penis of course, but that's another story.

It's these sort of facts that people are drawn to: factoids along the lines of 'the brain is two-thirds water' which make us coo with awe and delight. The brain is in fact made of 77% water, but the trainer kept saying this was 'about two thirds', and I had to bite down on my knuckles in order to resist the urge to point out that it was in fact three quarters. But I digress - my issue is that I don't really care how much of my brain is made of water, or how many billions of teeny tiny things it has in it - the concept of my conscious self being no more than a series of microscopic electrical impulses is strangely unappealing to me. Instead, here is a much more topical piece of information, one that everyone should know and that I'm embarrassed to say I didn't before today:

Schizophrenics do not suffer from split or multiple personalities.

Split personality is a result of Multiple Personality Syndrome, or MPS, which is usually a form of regression or disassociation from traumatic events such as abuse. Symptoms that schizophrenics may encounter appear to include paranoia, delusions, hallucinations and psychosis, which makes you wonder why the mainstream media (who, I think it's fair to say, aren't generally too understanding about mental health problems) have focussed on the idea of split personality. The term schizophrenia is Greek for 'split mind', which may be where the confusion arises. Another common belief about schizophrenics is that they are more likely to cause other people harm - this too is total nonsense.

This is where very small pieces of information like the one above come into their own - if everybody knew just one thing about schizophrenia, wouldn't it help to tackle the stigmas that surround mental health and allow people with established mental health problems to lead happier, less isolated lives, and also encourage those who need help to go out and get it instead of feeling embarrassed? Just a thought. I remember a few years ago Geri Halliwell released an album that has probably paved many a road since, and wanted to call it 'Schizophrenic' to represent her different musical styles (she changed it to 'Schizophonic' in the end, not that anyone cared). Has there ever been, in the history of time, a more ignorant and damaging misappropriation of any disease? Answers on a postcard to Knowledge Towers please.

Mormania

-- The mormon church at Isengaard... sorry, Chorley



Tonight my broadband is being more temperamental than a maverick cop who's just been busted down to sergeant by an irate police chief, so here's your fact:





The oldest surviving Mormon church in the world can be found in Preston.



Preston, Utah? Preston, Illinois? Nope: Preston, Lancashire. I discovered (via my mobile while my computer whirrs and squeals in an attempt to deceive me into thinking there's any hope) that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (otherwise known as Mormons) has had a foothold in the north-west of England since 1837, and according to a BBC article, the glacial building above is used as a sort of church/boot camp for young Mormon recruits (4,900 since 1998). Now any religion that involves a boot camp is never going to float many boats, but one aspect of Mormon life has always caught the eye of those who go into religion for the ladies: polygamy. In other words, Mormon husbands have a harem of wives to themselves, right? Well, not any more: polygamy was outlawed by the Mormon Church in 1890, as any misty-eyed Mormon who converted in 1891 will bitterly tell you.



There's plenty of other myths about the Mormons that can be laid to rest then, particularly regarding it being an American religion: there are 190,000 Mormons in the UK, putting it between Buddhism and Judaism in terms of UK numbers (if you don't count it as Christianity, which a nearby expert has confirmed should be the case). And as for all that nonsense about Jesus living in America, and Joseph Smith being a prophet rather than a shoddy trickster of the highest honour? Oh wait, that's true.

Imaginary, My Dear Watson

- Churchill & Eden following another ugly Commons brawl

In an effort to get the learning in early, I tend to, as you may have already gathered, pick up a Metro on my way into work. Sadly, it's been a wasteland of fact in recent weeks, and that's on the days I can manage to prise it open against someone's face on the train. Today it's back on form though, offering a frankly damning indictment of this once-proud nation's failing pub quiz abilities:

More than half of the population think that Sherlock Holmes was a real person, whilst 1 in 4 think Winston Churchill was not.

Ok, so the actual survey only asked 3,000 people, and you always have to account for the power of suggestion if people were asked whether the individuals above were real or imaginary. That said, it astounds me that even a child of three could get it wrong. Other famous figures that some incredibly believe to be works of fiction include: Richard the Lionheart, Charles Dickens, Gandhi, Cleopatra and Field Marshal Montgomery. Mostly unforgivable, although there are question marks over whether the smug sleuth Sherlock is in fact alive today (though he has let himself go a bit).

On the same page, in what is hopefully a sign that p20 of all future editions of Metro will be devoted solely to Churchill-based news, there's an article that reveals that Churchill had a Blair-Brownesque power struggle with his deputy, the future PM Anthony Eden. And while our modern-day dictators at least kept it civil when duking it out for unelected power (we never technically voted Brown in, but let's face it, nobody was voting for Blair last time out), it seems that when Winston and Tony had a bust-up, the gloves really came off. When Churchill refused to hand over power prior to a conference with US President Eisenhower, Eden shot back with a real zinger: "If I am not competent to meet Eisenhower then that would rule for all time". Ouch! Thankfully, the article has been toned down for more sensitive readers, but QFK can exclusively reveal that later in the same ding-dong exchange, some pretty tasty insults flew around the Cabinet office, including (time to put the kids to bed, don't give them nightmares) 'gadabout' 'ninny' and a final, show-stopping 'absolute shower'...

The 226-Year Old Fish

- A koi carp: Poor motor skills and refusal to adapt to new technology not pictured

I returned to The Book of Lists today in search of inspiration, and stumbled upon a list to do with the longest recorded lifespans for different animals. Sitting at the top of the list was the humble tortoise, whose longest-living member crawled to a mighty 188 years old. I've always been a big fan of the tortoise's attitude to life, particularly as portrayed in the story of the hare and the tortoise. I love this story because it allows me to get away with dazzling displays of laziness, apathy and weak ambition by claiming that "slow and steady wins the race". Never mind that it took a baffling display of arrogance from the vastly superior hare to blow his lead, and that even if he had slept for eight hours, it still would have taken an impossible range of unrelated events to drive the tortoise on to victory. Fact is, the tortoise won, therefore it is better to stay in bed until midday then get up and go for a run. Slow and steady, it's my mantra.

I was therefore somewhat disappointed to discover that it appears that the tortoise's laid-back style doesn't always come up trumps; the slowest and steadiest of all his house-carrying brethren, a tortoise by the name of Tui Malila, lived to be 188, but was not the oldest vertebrate ever to have lived - that honour goes to:

A koi carp called Manako lived longer than any other vertebrate in recorded history, dying at the age of 226 years.

Manako was owned by Dr. Komei Koshihara, who told her enraptured home nation of Japan in 1966 that her pet koi carp, Manako, was 215 years old. You can read a transcript here, which has been translated into reliably poor English. Further investigation shows that an examination of one of Manako's scales showed it's advanced age. Hanako was born before America, but much like flared trousers and socialism, died in 1981, or as it's known in Japan, Showa 56. That's right, in Japan, years are named after the current emperor, with the number signifying how many years they have been in power. Quite possibly a better fact, but thought I'd save it for the end. As we all know, slow and steady wins nearly every race.

My Eyes Are Pies

< Bowie's eyes: pretty freaky, man

Weekend fact-hunting is always tricky, what with no free papers to flick through, but I got something hot off the press first thing this morning, courtesy of my girlfriend, who told me that she'd read an article claiming that blue eyes are the result of a genetic mutation which occurred in the distant past. Further perusal of the article reveals that apparently every blue-eyed person is descended from one individual, as DNA tests demonstrate a change in the eye pigment at the same point in each person's DNA.

However, this isn't today's fact for two reasons: firstly, I don't really understand it, and crucially, as we concurred at Knowledge Towers, it appears to be groundless speculation of the highest order. The tell-tale sign is that Professor Elberg, the man touting this spurious claim, states that "originally, we all had brown eyes" in a brazen attempt to gloss over several millennia of human evolution. It did, however, lead me to look into eye colour in general, and particularly the odd phenomenon that gives me today's slice o' learning:

Heterochromia is the term given to the condition where a person has differently coloured left and right eyes.

Famous folk with this odd condition include Demi Moore, Kate Bosworth and, er, the singer from Rise Against (clearly they've got a rocker working in Wikipedia's typing pool). David Bowie does not suffer from heterochromia; he got his wrong eye from a playground punch-up, possibly instigated by turning up to P.E. in full make-up and calling the recent school rugby match "a freaky show". The fact that people can have different coloured eyes within their own face doesn't really add weight to the genetic mutation theory behind blue eyes, but maybe there's something in it. I think I'm just not buying it because I myself have blue peepers, and I had always hope that if I was a mutant, I might get X-ray vision, or really long arms, instead of runty eyes lacking in pigmentation. Oh well.

Rat Humour & 'Two Pints Of Lager'

< "Dude, you fell off the cheese!"

We march into February with another undiscovered nugget of knowledge, today coming courtesy of my sister, who has informed me of the following:

Rats can laugh.

The most succint statement to date, but as ever, there's a world of ambiguity behind it. Apparently a scientist by the name of Jaak Panksepp (hey, if you were suggesting rodent wit, you'd use a false name too) put together a report that claims that several animals, including chimps, dogs and indeed rats, make noises akin to laughter when playing with each other (not like that). You can hear the rat noises here, where they are repeatedly pestered by a 1970s Open University physics lecturer; to me it sounds more like high-pitched growling, like the Bee Gees having a row.

To clarify, the theory being put forward is not that our animal brethren like to share a witty anecdote over a glass of Merlot (though we do know a certain mongoose who liked a good laugh). Instead, the suggestion is that laughter is an intrinsic human expression that may have existed within us before we discovered language. Seeing as it doesn't involve words, that seems pretty plausible. Jaak does push the boat out a little too far by claiming that any rodent humour would be "heavily laced with slapstick", which is pretty much the stupidest thing I've ever heard. My personal belief is that they're not laughing at anything, which does make them similar to humans; humans who've just puffed their way through a £20 bag of mungo weed and are sat watching an omnibus of Two Pints of Lager. The rat-stoner theory gathers pace as we witness them here, making a midday dash to the local KFC.

A couple of updates from previous posts:

Regarding my anti-Gillian McKeith rant, I have recently discovered, to my utter delight, that she is no longer allowed to call herself Dr Gillian McKeith, because she got her degree from 'an unaccredited U.S. college', i.e. from eBay. "The only things getting thinner here are her credentials..."

Regarding smart people not getting decent degrees, here's the other side of the coin: George W. Bush went to Harvard and Yale, and attained a degree and an MBA, despite being, by some distance, the stupidest person who has ever lived.