30/05/2009
10 things we didn’t know, from last weeks news, sliced, diced and processed for your convenience.
Courtesy of BBC Magazine Monitor, your recommended daily allowance of news and culture.
- Beer mat collectors are called tegestologists.
- A train that arrives 10 minutes late can still be officially on time.
- The word “laodicean” means to be indifferent in matters of politics or religion.
- Sounds have shapes.
- People can overdose on chewing gum.
- Only one in 10 people with Tourette Syndrome swears.
- Just two people know the recipe for Irn Bru.
- Stabbing in the buttocks has its own verb in Roman dialect.
- Places with slow or non-existent broadband are called notspots.
- The world’s longest recorded marriage is 86 years.
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10 Things | Tagged: tegestologists, on time, laodicean, shapes, chewing gum, Tourettes, Irn Bru, stabbing, notspots, marriage |
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Posted by cybasurfa
16/05/2009
10 things we didn’t know, from last weeks news, sliced, diced and processed for your convenience.
Courtesy of BBC Magazine Monitor, your recommended daily allowance of news and culture.
- Sending nude images via a mobile phone is called “sexting“.
- Miss Universe must remain single for a year.
- The Odeon cinema chains are named after their British founder Oscar Deutsch, and the acronym stands for Oscar Deutsch Entertains Our Nation.
- Use of the word “carbuncle” to describe a building was first made in the 19th Century to describe Buckingham Palace.
- We are born violent.
- And a tribe in Bolivia has a festival of violence to settle disputes.
- Joanna Lumley was sounded out by Labour to run as London Mayor in 2000.
- Plants can water themselves.
- Emotionally intelligent women orgasm more.
- Some petals have velcro-like surfaces.
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10 Things | Tagged: Buckingham Palace, Joanna Lumley, Miss Universe, Odeon, orgasm, petals, plants, sexting, tribe, violent |
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Posted by cybasurfa
10/05/2009
10 things we didn’t know, from last weeks news, sliced, diced and processed for your convenience.
Courtesy of BBC Magazine Monitor, your recommended daily allowance of news and culture.
- There is a real place called Hicksville.
- Britain once sent an envoy with a quadruple-barrelled name to Moscow – Admiral Sir Reginald Aylmer Ranfurley Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax.
- Sikhs do not have to wear motorcycle crash helmets.
- Napoleon wrote chick-lit.
- John Prescott’s toilet seat broke twice.
- Tom Hanks watches Loose Women.
- Youth hostelling was invented in Germany in 1912.
- The use of the word “rat” as an insult in English goes back at least until the 16th Century.
- Two main muscles are used for smiling – the zygomatic muscle turns the corner of the lips up and the orbicularis oculi crinkles the corners of the eyes.
- Birds are actually really rather clever.
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10 Things | Tagged: birds, chick-lit, Hicksville, John Prescott, rats, Sikhs, smiling, surnames, Tom Hanks, youth hostelling |
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Posted by cybasurfa
02/05/2009
10 things we didn’t know, from last weeks news, sliced, diced and processed for your convenience.
Courtesy of BBC Magazine Monitor, your recommended daily allowance of news and culture.
- Diamonds can be blue.
- Birds can dance.
- You can get a driving licence and credit card in the name of Pudsey Bear, but not a passport.
- The annual salary for the Poet Laureate is £5,750.
- Many mosques in Mecca point the wrong way for prayers.
- Flu vaccines are grown in chicken eggs.
- An outbreak of swine flu in 1976 killed one person but a vaccine to combat it killed 25.
- Adults who are sexually attracted to teenagers are called hebophiles.
- David Attenborough doesn’t own any pets.
- Prince was born with epilepsy.
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10 Things | Tagged: dance, David Attenborough, diamonds, hebophile, mosques, Poet Laureate, Prince, Pudsey Bear, swine flu, vaccines |
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Posted by cybasurfa
25/04/2009
10 things we didn’t know, from last weeks news, sliced, diced and processed for your convenience.
Courtesy of BBC Magazine Monitor, your recommended daily allowance of news and culture.
- Five trees make an orchard.
- Matthew Parris once ran the London Marathon in 2hrs 32m, the fastest by an MP.
- Paper can be made from wombat poo.
- Robin Hood had no Maid Marian in the early days.
- British consumption of poultry increased 25-fold between 1950 and 2000.
- Video Killed the Radio Star was inspired by a JG Ballard short story.
- Wine varies in taste from day to day.
- French women are the lightest in the EU. British women are the heaviest.
- The sun is dimmest it has been for a century.
- There’s a swear word in The Beatles song, Hey Jude.
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10 Things | Tagged: JG Ballard, Matthew Parris, orchard, poultry, Robin Hood, sun, The Beatles, wine, wombat, women |
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Posted by cybasurfa