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...