100 things you probably didn’t know

88. Dead passengers on British Airways flights used to be given sunglasses, a vodka and tonic and a copy of the Daily Mail to disguise them from other passengers.

I once used a copy of “Weekend” magazine from the mail on Saturday to splint an elderly persons fractured wrist. It worked well and the cellophane it came in held it all together. Hooray for torybodge!

Also

25. Over 88% of individual winners at the Darwin Awards are men.

According to “male idiot theory” (MIT) many of the differences in risk seeking behaviour, emergency department admissions, and mortality may be explained by the observation that men are idiots and idiots do stupid things.16 There are anecdotal data supporting MIT, but to date there has been no systematic analysis of sex differences in idiotic risk taking behaviour. In this paper we present evidence in support of this hypothesis using data on idiotic behaviours demonstrated by winners of the Darwin Award.17 18 19 20 21 Winners of the Darwin Award must die in such an idiotic manner that “their action ensures the long-term survival of the species, by selectively allowing one less idiot to survive.”20 The Darwin Awards Committee attempts to make a clear distinction between idiotic deaths and accidental deaths. For instance, Darwin Awards are unlikely to be awarded to individuals who shoot themselves in the head while demonstrating that a gun is unloaded. This occurs too often and is classed as an accident. In contrast, candidates shooting themselves in the head to demonstrate that a gun is loaded may be eligible for a Darwin Award—such as the man who shot himself in the head with a “spy pen” weapon to show his friend that it was real

Shot yourself in the head, sir? Not to worry, here’s a daily mail and some shades.

Dead passengers on British Airways flights used to be given sunglasses, a vodka and tonic and a copy of the Daily Mail to disguise them from other passengers.

Because nobody will try and make eye contact with a Daily Mail reader for fear of having to converse with one.

BBC 100 things we didn’t know last year

Seals like to have sex with penguins 😯

#19 street markings deciphered:

John Robinson will be speaking about the language of pavement markings on BBC Radio 3’s The Verb programme on Friday, 4 April at 22:00 BST.

Dammit – and it’s no longer on iplayer!