Available For Weddings & Pub Quizzes

<< An Austrian in traditional costume

No need to supply my own material tonight, as I've had a request for knowledge (see what I've done there) - admittedly from Claire's workmate, but it's a start. So, in answer to their question:

Australia is named after 'australis' the Latin word for 'south'.

There were additional questions as apparently I am not a man but a fact-finding machine - I can also reveal that Austria's name does not mean the same as Australia's. It is in fact an Anglicanisation of Osterreich, the country's name in Austrian, which means 'Eastern Empire'. Thought that was China, but there you go. Also, in the Olympics, the prefix AUS is used by Australia, whilst AUT is used by Austria. The similarity of their name appears to be no more than a coincidence and a half. Anyway, like any mobile DJ worth his £500, I'm going to pop to the shops while I leave the requests coming. This one goes out to all the boys in Credit Control - it's Dead or Alive...

Getting the Hump

<< A Camel Gone Wild, yesterday

I'm almost three months into the Quest now, and have long since established that Sunday is the hardest day to learn things. It's short, it's quiet, and even a plane falling onto a house can't disrupt the serenity. On occasions such as these, I turn back to The Book of Lists, which always has something I didn't know before, even if it is of minimal interest to anyone:

Sudan has more camels than any other nation on Earth, with 3.2 million at the last count in 2003.

Sudan has 1 million more camels than their nearest rival, Mauritania, which is also in sub-Saharan africa. Egypt, incidentally, is 19th (they tell you that on The Book of Lists, even though it's a Top 10, because they know that you'll want to know - they know how to do a good list dammit) despite all the fag packets trying to promote the Pyramids to them, the camels ain't budging. Originally both dromedary (one hump) and bactrian (two humps) camels came from Asia, but are now predominantly found in North Africa and the Indian sub-continent, and are nearly all domesticated. There are around 1000 wild camels in the Gobi desert, and some feral camels in the Australian outback.

Wait a minute. Feral camels? In Australia? This just got slightly more interesting. Apparently they were brought to Oz to be used on farms, but have since been left to roam the outback. Feral animals, by the way, are species which were once been domesticated but have since been allowed to run wild again. Another reason not to go to the outback then - as if snakes, spiders and the guy from Wolf Creek weren't enough, there appear to be camels gone wild roaming the landscape...

Trivial Pursuits

<< Langstone Harbour: Rebellious tide not pictured

I'm cheating a bit by changing the date - I'm typing this on Sunday - but I did learn and record this yesterday, but couldn't get to the computer (amazing how time-consuming Trivial Pursuit can be). My team won with a question on King Canute, which my good buddy Lee answered - apparently, he sat on a throne by a shoreline and commanded the tide to recede. King Canute that is, not Lee. The foolhardy king subsequently drowned. I tried and failed to verify this last night, but this is all I could come up with:

King Canute lived in Bosham, West Sussex, and it is believed that it was at the coastline nearby that he infamously failed to turn the tide of the encroaching sea.

To be honest, I didn't even know King Canute was a real person, and to find that his legendary activities happened close to my previous residence in Portsmouth is quite exciting, even if it was 1000 years ago. Lee thought that it was the tide at Langstone Harbour, which runs along the right-hand of the city (and is also in close proximity to Bosham) which failed to heed it's Kingly call. I can't prove that anywhere, but who I am to argue? Won us the game, that's all that matters.

Anthropomorphism

<< Anthropomorphism at it's finest

The above is now my new favourite word (replacing 'poo' after an impressive 22-year run) and it means this:

Anthropomorphism is the term given to the application of uniquely human characteristics to nonhuman beings, objects or other phenomena.

Some examples - non-human being, Bugs Bunny. Object - Thomas the Tank Engine. Phenomena - um, Casper the Friendly Ghost? The worst example of this would have to be those pet rescue ads where Neil Morrissey tells us how, in a previous life where he was a greyhound, he felt betrayed when his owner left him, feels he has love to give and 'knows he's a good dog'. Unless Mozza is interpreting this through his new-found sentience as a human being, he's wrong. Dogs really don't know whether they're good or bad. People will say I'm being cruel, but if you have to give a hungry, sick and caged animal human emotions in order to feel sorry for it, then shame on you.

You may be wondering why I chanced upon this definition - well, it relates to the mice that are loose aboot this hoose. Forgive me for lapsing into the dull minutae of my actual life for a moment, but I bought some glue traps in the pound shop as it said they were 'humane' - sadly for Mr. Mouse, it turns out they're the rodent equivalent of the final scene in Saw. It is, thankfully, possible to remove any stuck critters who haven't chewed their legs off and then release them into the wild. My concern was that they would then round up their furry friends and return to my house in numbers, as some kind of revenge mission.

So, I wondered, do animals understand the concept of vengeance? I felt sure that some animals do (although I imagined that didn't include mice) but it appears that I was wrong. There are theories being mooted about elephants and killer whales killing to mend past wrongs, but really it's a ridiculous idea, and a perfect example of how we apply human characteristics to animals all too readily. I'm sure I've seen nature programmes where lion cubs have been attacked, supposedly because of the misdemeanours of their parents. Most 'experts' seem to think that animals are not capable of this kind of thinking, but maybe they just believe that the best revenge is living well. Someone has to. So don't worry, you can turn over those RSPCA ads, the dog won't come after you when he's out of the clink. Or will he...

My Kingdom for a Wispa

<< 1984: Strikes still meant something, and Wispas were in plentiful supply. Not so bad after all

Faced with the possibility of an extra hour of commuting each day next week, courtesy of striking train drivers, I had a look at what the longest strike in history might be. It certainly won't be this one - it's been called off before it even got started. Apparently the drivers are happy with the offers on the table to increase their 40k-a-year salary. Man, I've got to get a slice of that pie. Anyway, it's all making Britain look a bit silly - trains are barely running, the glitzy new Terminal 5 can't seem to find a working baggage belt amongst its £3 billion arsenal of futuristic gadgets, and you can't get a bloody Wispa for love nor money. I've been in ten newsagents round here and they're nowhere to be seen. What's this country coming to?!

The two longest recorded strikes in history both lasted for 13 years, each running from 1991 to 2004.

They involve two pretty disparate social groups and, I should probably point out, are entirely unrelated. Teamsters at the Diamond of California plant held out for 13 years to earn new contracts, whilst 370 Fijian miners ignored their employers vetoing the strike after 4 years, and stayed on the picket line until 2004, when the Fijian High Court fired them all. A happy end to that tale then.

This story harks back to an era when strikes seemed to really mean something - putting yourself through intense hardship to secure a fair deal for yourself and your fellow workers. I have to question whether that's what's on the train drivers' minds as they mull over how big a pay rise they can squeeze out of their bosses.

Alan Sugar Does Not Use Prostitutes

The server here at Knowledge Towers is under a strict rota tonight, so I have but fifteen minutes to attain a marginally higher level of understanding of our universe. Speaking of which, the world's greatest TV show, The Apprentice, returns to our screens tonight. I'm talking, of course, about the UK version, not the jazzy Stateside predecessor with Donald Trump. The guy is the worst autocue reader I've ever seen, and then there's that hair. Everybody knows it's a wig, and it's of a quality seemingly beneath the standards of your average dole queue member, and yet a multi-millionaire goes on national TV with it trying to escape from his head. No, I'm salivating at the return of our vastly superior version, with the infinitely more sensibly coiffured Sir Alan Sugar - but you can call him Sir Alan. Or, as Phil Tufnell called him, Sir Sugar. Just don't forget the Sir. He didn't seem to enjoy being called Sir Sugar - a moniker perhaps only suitable if he was being addressed by a hired escort.

Sir Alan may be slick, laconic and also the epitome of not taking prisoners (I only realised today that this is a rather grisly phrase), but he's not quite the UK equivalent of Trump, mad hair or not. He ranked 84th on the 2007 Sunday Times Rich List, which isn't bad, but if you consider that Britain's best tennis player is Andy Murray, and the 84th best is probably about 3 years old, you can see that there's ground to be made up. Amusingly enough though, for all his efforts to get his prospective employees to turn poo into diamonds through a baffling hour of wheeling, dealing and guesswork, he has taken the easy route in recent years:

The majority of Sir Alan Sugar's £830m fortune comes from property investment in Mayfair.

It doesn't get much less entrepreneurial than that. But, despite the fact he may missed the chance to be as rich as Bill Gates, and hasn't had a successful product out since Will Smith first sat on his throne as the Prince of Bel-Air, he's still a lot better than the utter shower of buffoons he has to select from. So will it be a young, incompetent man or a blandly attractive, compliant woman this time round. Can't wait to find out...

Seventh Heaven

<< Watch out Sweden - we're coming for your crown

I awoke this morning at 6.45pm, having had three hours of sweaty, uncomfortable half-sleep on the sofa (fear not, there are no marital issues at Knowledge Towers - I was just fidgeting a lot). My alarm was not due to go off for another hour. The disturbance was caused by a rodent nibbling at something mere feet from my head. I then scuttled out into a freezing head wind, pushed my way onto three separate packed trains, and arrived at my desk, mountain of work still very much intact, unkempt, angry and trying to dismiss the idea that mice had run over my clothes in the night. I then went online to discover the following:

The UK is the 7th most stable and prosperous nation to live in in the world.

That's right, this cold, grey, rat-infested dump is beaten only by Sweden in the desirability stakes (the rest of the Top 6 are what you might call 'freak states' - The Vatican, Luxembourg, Monaco, Liechtenstein, Aldington-on-Sea, etc etc). We also rank above Canada, Denmark, Switzerland and other places that are frankly much nicer than here. Even America is in the Top 30, so what's going on? It may have something to do with the fact that the survey 'compilers' (three people, flip chart, big map, coin), Jane's Information Services (really) are coming from a military angle. The UK got a perfect score on foreign policy stability, despite getting involved in two Middle East invasions since the turn of the century. Speaking of which...

Iraq is officially not the least stable nation in the world - it's only joint tenth! Woo! I'm sure the citizens of Baghdad would be out in the streets celebrating if they weren't dead, dying, imprisoned or ravaged by grief and despair. The article expresses surprise that it dodged the 'bottom ten', though I have to say that being tenth generally means you've made it. The most unstable territories on Earth are Gaza and West Bank and Somalia, both torn asunder by displacement, political upheaval and militant attacks. Suddenly waking up with a mouse for company doesn't seem like such a big deal...

Fact of the Day & BBC Three Sucks

<< The blobs: Gone but not forgotten

As usual on a day off work, I seem to have less time than ever to learn new stuff. I guess that while I'm usually at work or commuting for 8 hours, I can easily spend double that carrying out an inane yet deliriously exciting activity on the Wii, in order to unlock an entirely fictional prize. Anyway, today's fact comes, appropriately enough, from a nifty website by the name of Fact of the Day:



The smallest mountain in the world is Mount Wycheproof in Victoria, Australia, with a summit just 140 feet above the surrounding plains.



I literally copied and pasted that (I changed lowest to smallest, in the interests of pedantry) which really is a new low. I think all the information you need is there though. To be honest I'm struggling to get excited about a slight elevation in the endless plains of the Australian outback, and thinking too much about it is gonna remind me of Wolf Creek. Head on a stick. Brrr. I saw The Orphanage yesterday which was pretty creepy, but Wolf Creek is still the scariest film I've seen this century. Don't look at me like that, it's a bloody terrifying film.



I'm also distracted because I've just realised that I've missed EastEnders. I know it's shameful, but come on, in the last episode Max appeared to get buried alive by Tanya. Which means he'll be back at some point. Maybe tonight? Or maybe in five years time? Will Tanya get caught? Will the actress playing her take bad acting to a new low? I'll never know. It's repeated on BBC Three, but I refuse to watch that shower since they got rid of the cool orange blobs in favour of some godawful, sub Def-2 'yoof' makeover, by the same designer dickheads who came up with the literally unbelievable 2012 logo. Go on, have another look at the garish monstrosity.



Sorry, I digressed slightly there, but the truth is sometimes it's fun not to learn, as demonstrated by the hordes of people who aren't reading this blog...

Botty Burps

No need for learning this afternoon or evening, as Claire helpfully informed me of the following in the early hours of this morning:

The average human being farts fourteen times a day.

Not a lot to add to that really, except that I'm currently well below the average today (it's been 2 or 3, tops) but I do have a hearty dinner still to come, so I could yet break even. While confirming the above statement, I stumbled upon this website, which tells you literally everything you ever wanted to know about farting, in an admirably deadpan style. It includes such nuggets (please forgive the mental image that may have created) of bum-burp-based trivia as the reason why silent farts smell worse. It's because they're created from bacterial reactions inside the intestine, whereas the loud 'n' proud ones that it's worth turning the telly down for are caused by the intake of oxygen - through the mouth, I might add.

Incidentally, my favourite kind of fart is the early morning, turning over in bed, three second thumper - completely unattainable at any other time of the day. If this can be delivered in time with music playing in the room, you may as well not bother getting up, because your day already can't get any better.

Akimbo

<< Sonia from EastEnders demonstrates both the 'arms akimbo' position and a bodily transformation that borders on the terrifying

A church bell tolls thrice, cutting through the silence of the desert. A ball of tumbleweed bounces across the vista. A lone coyote howls across the desolate plain. No facts today. Anywhere. I looked high, I looked low, under the sofa, behind the TV, and this is the best I can come up with:

When you stand with your hands on your hips, you are standing with arms akimbo.

Weirdly, to stand with your legs akimbo is to have your legs far apart from each other, which is slightly different, obviously. A third meaning relates to shooting stuff - if you have a pistol in each hand, you're tooled up with pistols akimbo. This relates to online shoot 'em ups however, and the day I turn to the online gaming community for factual assistance will be a sad day indeed. Apparently the word 'akimbo' could come from a number of sources, but I'm just going to point you over here, with a warning that the material within is disconcertingly dry. When you're getting into derivations of Icelandic verbs, it's time to wind it up.

The Only Book I've Ever Finished*

<< Oxford University: Full of uptight squares who wouldn't know a good book if it punched them in the face. Not that I'm bitter

It's Good Friday, so whilst half the country apparently sat in several miles of static traffic, bitterly weeping onto their plane tickets, I've been eating hot cross buns and learning very little. Fortunately, my brother has informed me of the following:

"The Ocean Full of Bowling Balls", a short story by J.D. Salinger which reveals secrets from "Catcher in the Rye", will not be published until 50 years after his death.

It concerns the death of Holden Caulfield's brother Kenneth, known as Allie in the original book. Oops, looks like I gave the ending away. It's currently locked away in the bowels of Princeton University, and can only be read under supervision, once you have bought your way in with two forms of ID. In terms of inaccessibility, it's up there with trying to give British Gas a meter reading over the phone. While it's true that Catcher in the Rye is a classic novel, I fear Salinger may have slightly misjudged it's importance by holding back a handful of trivial details for what could be 100 years after it's publication. I last read it 7 years ago and can't remember any of the events it throws new light upon - even if Salinger hit the dirt tomorrow, it won't be in Waterstones until I'm 74, by which stage I'll probably be more concerned with controlling my bowel movements than where that baseball glove came from.

As I've previously discussed, for someone with an interest in writing, my perseverance in digesting literature is embarrassingly poor. When I attended an interview at Oxford to bag a place on their English degree course, I had to venture into the head lecturer's office and discuss my favourite novel. As Catcher in the Rye was the only book I had finished in the previous year, I plumped for that, saying I really identified with the main character (a guy who hates being at university, as I recall). I can still remember the mixture of revulsion and pity in his eyes. I wasn't invited back.

---

*I'm joking, of course. I have also completed The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole and Spot Goes Fishing, both of which I can heartily recommend.

Have It Your Way*

I've just eaten two Burger King meals (it's not product placement - no money has changed hands, apart from the exorbitant fee for the produce) and my stomach is so full of Burger King that it appears to have seeped into my frontal lobes, rendering me incapable of contemplating anything other than BK-related topics. They do a Triple Whopper now. That's good. You can't pay with a card. That's bad. Oh god, the pains are starting. I'd better press on:

The first ever Burger King restaurant was in Miami.

Before the pins and needles start and my eyes start rolling back in my head, here are some other birthplaces for fast food chains that have spread over the world like a delicious yet poisonous form of bindweed: McDonald's was founded in San Bernadino, California, while the first KFC was in South Salt Lake, Utah (though the Colonel did have a restaurant in Kentucky beforehand). Nando's - Rosettenville, South Africa. Pizza Hut - Wichita, Kansas.

As for something closer to home - the first Greggs opened in 1930 in Gosforth, an area of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Everyone thinks Greggs comes from their town, as they began appearing like a rash at the turn of the century all over the country. But unless you're from Newcastle, you're wrong. Initially, I thought that this might be the first positive thing I could offer Heather Mills, but sadly, she's not even from Newcastle. Unlucky. I wonder if I can mention her and the total collapse of her public image in every single entry. Here's hoping.


*Other ways are available.

Half?

<< Adnan Khashoggi: He owns your soul

Not much happening today so I, like many, am going to milk the very public humiliation of Heather Mills a little bit further. About the only good thing she got out of the whole disastrous business was 24 million sheets, currently being bundled into binbags by Macca himself. Trouble is, he offered her closer to £50 million as an out-of-court settlement, but she went to court in search of a pile of binbags worth double that. Unlucky.

It had been touted as perhaps the biggest divorce settlement in history, what with Macca's £800 million fortune, but in celebrity terms it's been dwarfed by several other settlements. The equal 'winners' on this list are Michael Jordan and Neil Diamond (possibly the first time they've ever been mentioned in the same sentence) who each had to cough up £75.5 million to their respective ex-spouses. But what of those less famous, but a lot richer? Well, here the waters get murky: when properly rich people break up, there's a lot less media interest, and a lot less clear-cut, as said divorcees often have their fingers in several ethically dubious monetary pies. There is, however, even in such confused, litigious circumstances, only one winner:

Roman Abramovich's divorce settlement with his ex-wife Irena is the largest in history.

Despite it being shrouded in mystery, Mr Chelsea is a comfortable winner due to his frankly obscene fortune - even conservative estimates (from dubious sources, admittedly) put the figure at £2.5bn. Until the man who made his billions from buying up Russian oilfields at rock-bottom prices while the rest of his country queued for bread took his crown, an equally morally corrupt figure held the record for over twenty years. Adnan Khashoggi, a Saudi arms dealer, paid his ex-wife Soraya somewhere in the region of £548.4m following their 1980 divorce. Now, the fact that he sells guns for a living might give you a hint about this guy's character, but read on, for the plot thickens...

Adnan Khashoggi's nephew is Dodi Al-Fayed. His daughter's real father is Jonathan Aitken. He has been linked to the 9/11 attacks (probably just for being Arabic, but there you go), the Iran-Contra scandal, and pretty much every single shady happening of the last 40 years. He's even been accused of rigging the 2000 U.S. election - the ballot supervisor in Florida used to work on his private plane. When he wasn't secretly ruling the entire human race, he was allegedly paying escorts £10,000 a night for some high-end rumpo. One of said escorts - Lady Heather Mills-McCartney. Don't worry, it all went to charity.

A Jug of Water & 10 Fish Fingers

<< One lives in a fantasy world, endlessly embarking on pointless missions of their own invention. The other is Captain Birdseye. Arf

A glorious day for the nation's media as they finally got to the chance to legally depict their arch-nemesis, Heather "I need more money for my, uh, charity" Mills as the following: "inconsistent" "far from candid" and "devoid of reality". Seriously, even I'm enjoying writing it, so imagine how they feel - and to the female newsreader on ITV's six o'clock bulletin, we all saw the wry smile play across your lips throughout the bulletin.

The fact that it was headline news above such trivial matters as mass graves and economic meltdown is pretty scandalous, but somehow I felt able to let it slide. Heather Mills seems like she's gone a bit wrong (oh god, she'll be on the phone to me now) - she bangs on about how all her legal fees should be going to charity, then demands a £3m New York apartment from her ex-husband. She throws a jug of water over his lawyer for being mean to her - she's supposed to, she's a lawyer. And there's the whole slagging the press while using them for her own ends business. The press have made her out to be a liar and a weirdo, which I think is a bit extreme, but she certainly is a dickhead of the highest order.

It wasn't all overdue comeuppances in the news today - the joy was tempered with sorrow, as we learnt of the peaceful passing of Captain Birdseye. No more shall we join him at the captain's table for some processed fish in a golden crumb. So here's what I learnt about the great seafarer, and if I'd only known sooner I could have met the legend in person, before it was too late:

Captain Birdseye's house is in Twickenham.

I've even been past the old seadog's former dwelling on the bus a few times. It's called Brinsworth House and is a retirement home for elderly people who once worked, or indeed continue to work in the business they call show. Previous residents (who have now, well, where do most people go after living in a retirement home?) include Thora Hird, Alan Freeman and Madge from the Dame Edna Everage show. Other residents include Bruce Forsyth's ex-wife, and a children's entertainer, which is pushing the showbiz envelope to breaking point. And amongst them walked the greatest sailor since Cap'n Crunch, now on a mission to the great captain's table in the sky.

OK, so he wasn't a real captain, he was an actor. His name was John Hewer and he is also famous for... just the Birdseye ads then. Are you happy now?

Putting the Sham in Shamrock

<< St. Patrick was happy to pose for fans' pictures at the business end of a banishing

It's St. Patrick's Day today, and as I like to keep the learning seasonal:

St. Patrick did not banish snakes from Ireland.

This didn't even really surprise me to be honest - maybe after three months of debunking, plus several hundred re-runs of QI, I'm becoming jaded. Anyway, St. Pat apparently couldn't have told the snakes to sling their collective hooks, as there were never any snakes in Ireland to begin with. One suggestion put forward is that this is instead a metaphor for the Druids, who packed up and took their serpentine symbol with them. I think this might be the definition of exaggeration - what began as the removal of a marginalised religion turned into the destruction of an entire species. What's odd is that nobody throughout the passing down of the legend seemed to connect with the fact that you don't get snakes in Ireland. Still, that's nostalgia for you.

We got an e-mail at work today with a picture of a leprachaun attached, holding the stereotypical pot o' gold. Underneath it said 'remember complaints are golden - keep hold of them!' A nice use of a significant, celebratory date to remind us all to do as we're told. I have a worrying suspicion that my employers are trying to treat personality in the same fashion that St. Patrick applied to snakes...

Update: Today isn't St. Patrick's Day. The week building up to the bun and egg fest that is Easter is known as Holy Week - if March 17 falls within Holy Week, St Patrick's Day is celebrating at an earlier date. In the Republic of Ireland it was celebrated on March 15, and most probably on March 16 as well (it's not a racist stereotype, I've got Irish ancestry... so it's cool)

Balderdash

Tonight I've been mostly playing a board game called Balderdash, which is a bit like Call My Bluff with different categories - as well as words, there's people, initials, films and dates (nobody ever does dates).Anyway, I learnt a few interesting facts during the game (which I lost due to my unfortunate inability to either bluff or spot bluffs) but a little internet perusal has informed me that they are in fact, well, balderdash. For example, it claimed that Scottish writer Tobias Smollett invented the post box, but my only friend Wikipedia, reckons different:

The idea of using a static pillar box to collect post was first suggested by Anthony Trollope.

That's right, the novelist who penned such works as (give me a minute) The Chronicles of Barsetshire came up with the idea when asked to come up with a postal system for the isolated communities on the Channel Islands. Smollett isn't mentioned anywhere - perhaps he wrote to Trollope suggested that there be some kind of hole through which to put the letters. The history of the post box isn't big on thrills and spills, but there are a couple of points of interest: firstly, the post boxes we use today were designed by J.W. Penfold, who lends his name to the postbox-dwelling character in Danger Mouse. Secondly, when post boxes in Scotland began having Elizabeth II's emblem on them, nationalists blew them up in protest. Not at the symbol of ongoing English oppression, but because Elizabeth II was Elizabeth I in Scotland, as the first Elizabeth (you know, the one in Blackadder) was never Queen of Scotland. This makes it surely the most pedantic act of terrorism in the history of the universe.

The Wonder of Pie

<< Those crazy mathematicians and their japes...

Sorry, I meant pi - the number, not the tasty pastry-based snack. I have discovered, through years of careful research (plotting co-ordinates, calculating logarithms, reading facts about pi) this frankly mind-bending fact:

The ratio between the total length of a river and the distance from source to mouth as the crow flies is 1:pi.

In layman's terms (ok, in slightly less complicated terms), this means that the total length of a river is usually just over 3 times longer than the distance from source to mouth, so mathematicians have suggested that it is in fact pi. It's certainly not universally accurate, but that's not gonna stop me telling everyone I know.

Pi has never been calculated entirely - a recent effort by a Japanese computer scientist got an accuracy of 1.24 trillion digits, which frankly just isn't good enough. Yesterday was pi day, so to celebrate, and in no way to pad out this entry, here's pi, accurate to 50 digits:

3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510.

Up on the Roof

<< Macca kicks back before the second encore

Again I barely have time to wind my watch up (if I wore one - I don't have time to wear one), so here goes:

The Beatles' performance on the roof of the Apple building was their last ever public performance.

I guess this explains why people make such a big deal of it - I never really understood the fuss before - four blokes on a roof, so what, I used to think with an adolescent sneer. Now I'll think, four past it blokes, so what. I headed towards the online mine of Beatles-related trivia having discovered that by the time they released Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club, they hated their pun-based name so much that they wanted to change it altogether.

It sprang from an article about terrible band names (I'd personally like to nominate Bullet For My Valentine, whose name is so bad it actually makes me like the band less), but I couldn't verify it anywhere - not in 30 seconds anyway. Apologies, I will return to Long and Winding blogs shortly.

Zero Hour

Tonight at Knowledge Towers, we've barely got time to go to the toilet, what with cleaning the house, cooking and washing up PLUS watching two episodes of sweet, sweet Lost (it's the finale, and I fancy Locke is gonna rise from the dead and gun the Others down). While we've been tidying there's been some programme on BBC Three where a woman called Dawn goes and does various stuff, in this instance trying to become size zero. So here's what I learnt, although admittedly Claire told me:

Size zero is actually size four in Britain - the equivalent of the US size zero, from which the phrase derives.

Dawn went round to lots of fashion houses in London, but she's hardly Roger Cook, generally walking into reception, asking if the boss was around and then meandering off. And for someone trying to demonstrate the dangers of developing anorexia in pursuit of a modelling career, she seemed strangely taken with her specially designed size zero dress. Still, it was better than Lily Allen's programme.

Immigrant Pun

Earlier today I read an article about Eastern European immigrants who have the nerve to come into this country and work really, really hard for long hours, to earn an absolute pittance. It focussed on the buzzing, multicultural metropolis of Peterborough in Cambridgeshire - apparently a popular destination with Eastern Europeans of all nationalities (that's right - they're not all Polish). These plucky travellers, who probably really wish they'd bought a copy of Lonely Planet beforehand, are busy debunking immigrant myths left, right and centre:

1. They're taking our jobs
The majority of Slavic immigrants into Peterborough are employed in farmers' fields, picking butternut squash, amongst other hard-to-peel delicacies. The reaction of the slightly more indiginous dole queue - they'd rather sign on. The next time your office racist (we've all got one) complains about the amount of 6'6" tall guys with shaved heads on the Tube, point out that if British people got off their arses and did the work, they wouldn't need to be here.

2. They're sending the money back home
Out of an entire room full of immigrants assembled in a local church hall, presumably just before the doors were barred and the national anthem started to loop through the PA, only one admitted that they had no interest in remaining in the UK. Many of the people interviewed have set up home in the UK - nice to see they're being made to feel welcome. It's not like sending money home would make them bad people - I'd like to see a few of the natives mentioned in point 1 venture out to Bialystok and work the fields to support their families. Some of these people won't even do data entry.

3. They're spongers
As if I needed to go on, I'd just like to point out that many of the veg pickers work 60 hours a week at £7 per hour. I bleat about doing an extra half-hour, and I get nearly double that, and don't even really hate my job. Yet.

So anyway, on to today's fact, which Claire looked up for me on this nifty website, and which is so coincidental and perfectly fitting for a topic she didn't know I was going to write about, that it made my bum go a bit funny:

The word 'slave' comes from Slav, a collective name given to people from Eastern Europe.

That's right, satire is alive and well on Quest For Knowledge...

Cash Money

<< Yoshi: Not your classic Olympian

Instead of being a good boy and learning plenty tonight, I've mostly been playing Mario vs Sonic at the Olympics on the beloved Wii. Lucky for me, then, that my work colleague informed me, apropos of nothing, of the following information:

The currency in Egypt is the pound.

Not pounds Sterling, but the imaginatively named Egyptian pound (or gineih as it is called in, um, Egypt, throwing suspicion on the whole thing really). Some pretty basic late-night research has revealed that pounds of different varieties are also used in Sudan, Lebanon and Syria, whilst pounds sterling itself is used in England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and in all Britain's island and colonies. Currencies bearing the name used to be all over the world, but as countries became independent, they decided to shake off the whole imperial vibe and switched to new currencies - tellingly, often dollars. For example, Australia switched from pounds to Australian dollars in 1966 (ditched the coin, kept the Queen - interesting).

Right, I'm off to propel a cartoon dinosaur over a pole vault...

Sick Day Excuses & Being Turned Into a Spider

<< Frankie's cellmate would come to regret telling him what happened to Mr Eko

Skived off work today, and made a mess of the phonecall to my boss (when she asked if I had food poisoning, I replied "hopefully", when of course, I meant to say "hopefully not"). I did manage to squeeze in the ultimate cover-all excuse for being off work - "I've literally just been sick". So instead of phonecalls and paperwork, it was Lost and Wii all day. We're miles behind with Lost after Virgin took it off cable because of their stupid playground fight with Sky, and are currently up to Series 3, Episode 14 (that weird 'buried alive' one). If you've seen Series Four please refrain from telling me what happens, I know it sounds obvious, but believe me, it's happened before.

Anyway, the episode we watched today featured a Medusa spider, which I thought might be real, so I googled it. The fact that every single site it brought up was Lost related led me to suspect otherwise. It's a complete fabrication, although some people, who must be too stupid to even cross the road, claimed that as they were real spiders in the show, it must be real, and if it's made up, then the spiders must be CGI. So dumb it's almost a whole new way of thinking. Interestingly, I did discover that Medusa and spiders are (kind of) connected - in Greek mythology, Athena turned Arachne into a spider, and Medusa into, well, Medusa. So if the island turns out to be nothing more than a large 90s poster shop, there'll be some significance. So today's fact is:

Arachnids are named after the Greek goddess Arachne, who was turned into a spider by Athena.

Click here to see an artist's impression of the transformation (best avoided if you've recently had dinner - unless you're looking for an excuse to call in sick tomorrow).

A Thesis on Traditional Cuisine

<< Come to Papa

A weekend-based factual double-header this, uh, weekend as I move from football to fry-ups. Please be assured, however, that I am in fact highly intellectual and sensitive, and not a builder. I'd much rather be reading Proust and making installation art than slurping down eggs in front of Middlesbrough v Cardiff, believe me. Anyway, I claimed whilst we were on holiday that the term 'full Scottish breakfast' was a derivation of full English breakfast, which is the actual name for any cooked meat-based breakfast. I think about food a lot. Anyway, I thought it was time to put my money where my mouth is. And, much like anyone who bet on Chelsea to win the FA Cup yesterday afternoon (sorry, too lowbrow - um, anyone who's ever bought installation art?) I've been left out of pocket.

Turns out that the correct term is a full breakfast, and the English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish appendages are all equally valid (Welsh? It's bacon, eggs, cockles and seaweed. It's an abomination). They're also prevalent in America and other parts of the Anglosphere, which means the world's other English-speaking countries, rather than some kind of colonial amusement park. It seems that a full breakfast can be pretty much anything as long as it centres on bacon and eggs (kind of like my whole diet, really). Somerset Maugham (oh yeah, we're getting literary now) once claimed that to eat well in England, you should eat three breakfasts a day. I'd say that's subjective - for instance, today I had a vegetarian full English, which would be fine, but yesterday I had a stale Hob-Nob and a can of Red Bull to start the day. The question is, where did the English obsession with massive, delicious breakfasts come from?

Full breakfasts were first eaten by farmers and landowners in the 19th century.

They were seen as a luxury by the landowning classes due to the propensity of fresh meat in them, but had not spread to the aristocracy, who still preferred a nice buffet. As for the peasants, it was still pebbles and gruel for them until greasy spoon cafés brought egg-based satisfaction and coronary troubles to the masses. So there we have it. Not a very interesting fact, but a good excuse to talk about fry-ups. As for the rest of my evening, well, it's not called an All Day Breakfast for nothing...

Up For The Cup

<< Gary Lineker parades a replica model of his head



In recent days I've covered racism, war and global warming, so I'm going to keep the big issues at the forefront, with a little fact about the FA Cup. Today Man Utd and Chelsea both got dumped out, by Portsmouth and Barnsley respectively, and why both sides are so unpopular was summed up in two separate incidents - firstly Alex Ferguson's wild-eyed rant about the referee. Yeah, they should've had a penalty, but I've watched enough Man Utd games to know they're owed a couple of dodgy decisions against them. I can still remember them knocking Man City out of the Cup with a penalty that was given for someone standing next to Roy Keane. Then in the Barnsley-Chelsea match, Barnsley were 1-0 up and their striker was about to go through on goal, when Carvalho literally kicked him in the shins to stop him. Not only should he have been sent off, but probably imprisoned. So good riddance to the whingers and cheaters, it's going to be Bristol Rovers v Barnsley at Wembley this year, and none of the 'Big Five' (that's Arsenal, Chelsea, Man Utd, Liverpool and Havant & Waterlooville) will play in the semi-finals.

The last time that neither Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool or Manchester United reached the FA Cup semi-finals was in 1987, when Coventry lifted the cup.

The glitziest possible line-up will feature Portsmouth, Barnsley, Middlesbrough and West Bromwich Albion. I know it's subjective but scrolling through geeks' paradise http://www.rsssf.com/ it looks like you'd have to go back to before World War 2 to find a motleyer crew left at this stage. The media have already started asking whether it's good for football to have such a farcical FA Cup, to which the short answer is yes. I've been watching godawful finals between the big teams for as long as I can remember. The first one I saw was Spurs-Forest in 1991 (a deceptively good final to start with) and it reached it's nadir with Chelsea's 1-0 win over Man Utd last year - I ended up going outside to throw pennies at a wall it was so dull. All the teams who focussed on finishing mid-table rather than go for glory must feel sick now. As a Man City fan, I can stand tall, though - we didn't go out by fielding a weakened team - we were knocked out by a balloon.

All White Now

I read an article that relates to BBC's White season, which asks 'is white working class Britain becoming invisible?' in a genuine attempt to uncover the truth about the matter, rather than just to stir up fear and suspicion in the poor and oppressed, where they could instil hope, education and motivation. The trailer for it shows a white guy having exotic scripture written over his face until he becomes 'invisible' (or blacked up). I thought it was a party political broadcast for the BNP. It suggests this season of programmes is little more than groundless provocation. Some white working class people may well feel disenchanted with modern society, but blame the government, instead of picking on people who aren't white and working class, and who have no power to change others' lives, but just want to live their own. I'm sick to death of the barely concealed undercurrent of racism in this country.

Sorry, I know that wasn't very light-hearted, but the whole business makes me feel rather despondent. Apparently the season has sprung from a Newsnight poll which claims that 58% of white working class people agreed with the statement "nobody speaks out for people like me", which is a nice open question. Interestingly, 37% (or 1 in 3) people asked this unbelievably loaded question, actually disagreed. Hardly a population on it's knees. As for those who feel 'marginalised', is it not enough that this country's biggest selling newspaper caters exclusively to their interests? I would love to see some of these people, living in 99% white market towns, to try being a foreigner for one day.

Another statistic that demonstrates the subjectivity of this poll is that white middle class people feel a similar level of disillusionment. That's right, even the people who run the country feel ill at ease. So what could possibly connect two groups with such differing recent economic fortunes? Oh yes, the fact that they're white and British, and therefore racist. And by the way, if you don't like airing your views on immigration because it makes you look racist, that's because you are. You perceive the world through boundaries of race and nationality that society has created to keep people apart. Unlucky.

Anyway, I think I've made my point, so here's today's fact:

Easington in Durham is the whitest town in England.

What's that? You've never heard of it? That's because it's a sad backwater of a place that nobody wants to move to (there are a few Poles, but as we all know, the British don't seem to mind the white immigrants quite so much). I do have sympathy for it's residents, who used to depend on industries that have moved abroad (now that's damaging globalisation - replaced countries with corporations) and now seem to have little direction, but it kind of sums up the problem with white working class Britain. If you'll excuse me for generalising somewhat, it seems like the demographic is awash with self-pity and finger-pointing. I work with white and non-white people on low incomes and the difference is tangible - I've never heard a non-white person, whether British or not, bleating on about what they're owed - they have just got on with it. I know there are exceptions, but that seems to be the mood at present - as someone says in the comments below the article, maybe white working class Britain IS becoming invisible, not because of government policy, certainly not because of other ethnic groups, but because they've got nothing to say...

And by the way, I'm white, I'm middle class, and yeah, I'm disillusioned too. I also don't feel I'm represented in the media - they seem to spend all their time stirring up the very xenophobes who claim to be marginalised. Do me a favour.

Agent Provocateurs

<< "I've just spoken to the owners, and they'll throw in the knobbler for an extra thousand"

There's a lot of movin' going on at the moment - my ma, pa and um, brah are all heading to pastures new, and we're considering an upgrade from Knowledge Towers (via the frankly baffling local shared ownership scheme). So here's a handy bit of info if anyone out there's thinking of relocating (you are out there, aren't you? anyone?):

The items most frequently left behind in vacated properties in the UK are sex toys.

So that's what they mean by period features. I've never stumbled upon anything quite so unsettling in a new flat, although I did find an eighties porn mag in the attic of our last place in Southsea. It led me to pontificate at great length as to what it was doing there, to the point that I was convinced that the previous tenant had created some kind of onanistic den above the kitchen, after which we really just had to move...

We're All Doomed

<< So, remind me again why you need a people carrier?

Today's fact came as a weird coincidence, as I had originally intended, in the absence of anything specific, to plump for 'the human race will destroy itself', staring as I now am into a chasm of confidence in my fellow man and woman to do the right thing, and actually care about the environment (even just a little bit). But I can at least supplement my spittle-flecked rantings with a titbit of relevant information:

It was on 5 March 1984 that scientists first alerted the world to the potential damage that fossil fuels were doing to the environment.

I got this from Teletext's On This Day-type feature - they rather sweetly referred to such a process as 'the greenhouse effect', which is like, so 90s. Like the equally doom-laden 'global warming', it seems to have been phased out in favour of the more ambivalent 'climate change'. Hey, the climate's changing, could get better, could get worse, I suppose? I guess that's half right. We do try and run an eco-friendly ship here at Knowledge Towers, and Claire even attended an environmental forum at Parliament last night (I stayed at home and turned on every single electric appliance I could find), and encountered a patronising, blinkered New Labour harpy of the highest order: Ms Joan Ruddock.

Ms Ruddock is apparently the Parliamentary Under-Secretary for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and had turned up to discuss environmental issues with members of the public. You may be surprised, therefore, to learn that Reckless Ruddock is in favour of not only the crazy expansion of Heathrow, but also nuclear power, for fuck's sake. She also voted against investigating Iraq and greater transparency of Parliament (why should we know what's happening? After all, we only elected you), and voted for the smoking ban, ID Cards and Trident. Nothing to do with the environment, but you get a picture of what a gibbering plastic socialist dickhead we're dealing with here.

Anyway, when faced with arguments against the Heathrow expansion, she claimed that it was necessary to expand the world's busiest airport further, to allow people from the Caribbean to go and visit their family. So if you're against the pointless expansion of an already massive airport, planned and funded by multinationals, then you're a racist. I could go on but my keyboard's starting to melt through sheer frustration - suffice to say, she demonstrated how little the government are doing about climate change (or as I have coined it, the world slowly cooking itself). But it's not just the politicians - two more things today have led me to the conclusion that we won't take climate change seriously until it's upon us, which will of course be too late.

The first is that American Airlines flew a plane from Chicago to Heathrow with 5 passengers on it (those five people could have all taken a car and driven round via Siberia, and it would have created lower carbon emissions). The second thing is on much a smaller scale, but endemic of the general attitude to recycling - a rubbish bag at Earlsfield station, literally stuffed to the brim with free newspapers. It seems that despite all the warnings, and all the advice that's out there, some people haven't even developed enough consideration to recycle one newspaper. Instead of trying to save the world from roasting, we're basting it in it's own juices. It's over. We've lost. I look forward to seeing an aged Reckless Ruddock sitting atop the House of Commons, fiddling while London sinks.

Maggie's South Seas Caper

<< The Falklands - worth fighting for, dammit

After a bit of a barren spell, I once again stumbled on an amazing fact (to me anyway - if you know it already, it probably lacks the same impact), courtesy of the magic portal that is, um, ShortList magazine (apparently 'Britain's No.1 men's magazine' - could be something to do with it being free):

The Falklands War only lasted for three months.

That's right, the conflict that perhaps defined Thatcher's 12-odd years in power lasted less time than the average series of Lost. Technically, it wasn't really a war at all - neither side actually said the magic word - but the conflict kicked off on 19 March 1982 when Argentina invaded the South Georgia islands, just in time for our Maggie to get in an early April Fool by pretending to going to war over a tiny smattering of barely inhabited islands fighting against the icy spray of the freezing Southern Ocean. Only it actually happened, though thankfully such a ridiculous war (although admittedly, not quite as illegal as more contemporary versions) didn't last long, tipping in Britain's favour when the Belgrano was sunk, prompting The Sun to deliver this infamous, horrible faux pas (the headline was later changed to 'Did 1,200 Argies Drown?', as if they really gave a shit). The war went on for long enough to do my old science teacher's head in though - he had shellshock that grew to the extent that he once took twenty minutes to realise that three kids had trapped another in the equipment cupboard, in spite of his futile screams. War is hell, man. War is hell.

In The Loop

<< It's true, anything between 10 and 30mph is possible

Something that I technically learned yesterday, but only confirmed today, is that the M25 is not a complete circle - there is a gap between the start (J1) and the end (J31) where the road crosses the Thames east of London proper. It becomes the A282, the reason being that it is the last crossing point on the Thames before it reaches the sea, and so needs to be available to traffic that isn't allowed on the motorway. All very concise and logical, but unfortunately not entirely learnt yesterday, so I'll have to go with this:

The M25 is the second largest orbital motorway in Europe - the Berliner Ring is 5 miles longer.

The Berliner Ring is surely also notable for being a road named afternot one, but two different kinds of doughnuts. The M25 is also symbolic in a less delicious way, coming to represent a symbol of traffic, roadworks and general road-based misery. Before it had even properly opened, Maggie Thatcher had to defend it (that woman had a lot to answer for most of the time), and it is alleged in the Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman book 'Good Omens' that it was in fact created by Satan himself.

It seems, however, that those dwelling within the cosy, gently suffocating concrete loop see it as part of their identity. A 2004 poll suggested that two-thirds of residents inside the London Orbital wanted Greater London to be extended to exactly meet it's boundaries - the approval rating was the same from those within the existing Greater London boroughs and those outside, but still inside the motorway loop. To me, crossing the M25 now is like stepping into Narnia - Reading is starting to feel like a rustic paradise where stags and squirrels frolic through misty glades. For tonight, however, I shall remain very much in the loop.

Sunday Screening

Knowledge Towers is currently screening a Sunday night showing of 'The Graduate' (courtesy of ITV3, in a rare break between episodes of Midsomer Murders and Never The Twain). I didn't want to watch it but am currently enthralled, particularly with the similarities between Benjamin and myself (intense social awkwardness, post-studying disillusionment, and of course the frisson with a glamorous older woman) so here's a quick Graduate-based fact:

Robert Redford screen-tested for Dustin Hoffmann's role in The Graduate, but was turned down as he wasn't awkward enough.

Apparently the director, Mike Nichols, when confronted by Redford over his decision, asked him if he'd ever "struck out" with a girl. Redford replied "what do you mean?". Nichols then claimed that this proved his point entirely. Dustin Hoffmann hadn't ever been in a major film before, but has so far been brilliant (let's hope there's no song-and-dance numbers in the last hour). I wish modern films would cast the right people for the part, instead of going for wholly inappropriate famous faces. Anyway, back to the film...

Don't Try Your Brakes*

We've vacated Knowledge Towers and have ventured to visit my parents, so not much time for musing today. My mum has informed me of the following:

There is no need to try your brakes after driving through a flooded section of road.

There's normally a sign which snippily advises you to do so, but this goes back to days of yore when cars had brake drums, beer was 10p a pint and you could leave your front door open when you went on holiday. Now all cars have the new-fangled disc and pad system, there's no danger of it being filled with water, so you can drive on with reckless abandon. If you head out on country lanes after a good storm, you may well spot old people in cars reminiscing about the good old days when a puddle could place you in mortal danger.

Apologies for the concise and accurate post, I'll be back to my normal lengthy ramblings tomorrow.


* Quest For Knowledge does not advise you to refrain from testing your brakes