Subscribe now and choose from over 30 free gifts worth up to £49 - Plus get £25 to spend in our shop
Bored at work so hit me with some facts. I'll start things off with what I found out about last week.
Chinese gamblers spend £70 billion per month in Macau, it could reach £1trillion this year.
CRC have been known to sell 400 cube bikes in one Friday.
Elton John's middle name is Hercules.
The nurses at derek_starship's diabetes clinic are all fat.
The French call paperclips "les trombones".
Therefore, we named a brass instrument after French paperclips. Fact.
Paperclips will be trombones from now on at my desk 🙂
Next time I see someone playing a trombone, I'll tell them they look like they're playing a trombone and ask if they want any help.
A single day on Mercury last exactly two Mercury years, or about 176 Earth days
400 people accidently ordered the wrong bike all on the same day.
tartiflette was 'invented' in the 1980s as a means of selling more rebluchon cheese.
There will probably never be a cat with X-ray eyes
Female pandas are only in heat for 72 hours a year, and can only conceive during 12-48 of those hours. In addition, male pandas normally have stubby genitalia, meaning that they have to have absolutely the correct positioning in order to successfully inseminate the female.
There are more Barbie dolls in the world than there are Canadians.
Anti-tromboning is a feature of voice networks that allows them to optimise the routing of individual connections according to their geographic location. For example, if two calls come from the same subnet it is possible to pass the control of the call over to the devices and reduce the load on the network.
Fascinating huh?
The Trombone was invented before the Paperclip. Fact!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trombone
The word trombone derives from Italian tromba (trumpet) and -one (a suffix meaning "large")
TRUE TRIVIA FACT: People will readily believe anything they hear on the Internet.
any other orchestral titbits?
The Trombone was invented before the Paperclip. Fact!
Yep.
"According to the Early Office Museum, the first patent for a bent wire paper clip was awarded in the United States to Samuel B. Fay, in 1867"
...
"[the trombone was] developed from basic trumpets when the lost Roman Empire art of bending tubing was rediscovered in the 15th century."
oxygen can cross the skin membrane in your mouth into your blood, therefore you don't actually need your lungs to breathe. (assuming your mouth has a massive surface area?)
Drac - ModeratorThe Trombone was invented before the Paperclip. Fact!
Shibboleth's sense of humour is too sophisticated for Drac... Fact.
The chimes of Big Ben as heard on Radio 4 before the six o'clock news news are still broadcast live from the bell, they're not recordings (like the News at Ten ones on ITV).
If you stand at the bottom of St Stephen's tower at the Palace Of Westminster (the tower that Big Ben is in) listening to the radio as the news is about to start on Radio 4, you'll hear the chimes of Big Ben on your radio before you hear them from the bell itself. True dat.
Slightly topical today,
The word 'muslim' is Swedish for 'mouse glue'.
People will claim it was all a joke when found out to be wrong. Fact!
The mug I'm drinking my cup of tea from is stripey
If you argue with a moderator, you get banned. Fact. 😉
The goose-foot barnacle is so named because it looks like a goose's foot.
The barnacle goose is so named because its feet look like barnacles.
The commonly held belief that "a duck's quack does not echo, and no-one knows why" is an urban myth and not true (thanks, Internet!!).
Shibboleth and Drac protesteth too much and should just get a room. Fact. 🙂
Oooh, I've got a cracker which I bet no-one knows. In fact, I'm going to ask it as a trivia question.
Glenmorangie boasts that it is handcrafted by "The Sixteen Men of Tain." This is actually a lie. Why?
You've got as long as it takes me to make lunch to guess.
The use by date on packets of crisps are always a Saturday.....
It's crafted by foot?
Up until 1976 (when the law was finally revoked), London cab drivers were legally obliged to carry a bale of hay for their horse. Similarly, the council had to provide taxi ranks with a water trough.
EDIT - urban myth and not true, ignore this.
Edinburgh is further west than Carlisle.
Travelling due south from central Detroit (USA), the first country one would arrive at is Canada.
There is only one lake in the Lake District (Bassenthwaite Lake).
scorpions can survive underwater for 3 days.can also survive being in a microwave oven.they also have 2 brushes on their underside that they use to detect chemical traces (remember this from a david attenborough doc)
Barbra Millicent Roberts is Barbies real name
Travelling due south from central Detroit (USA), the first country one would arrive at is Canada.
I don't get that.
Why it's true or why it's 'interesting'?
OK this one is related to me: my great uncle threw the run out ball that created the first ever tied test match. West Indies vs Australia at the Gabba in 1960. I got to attend the 40th reunion and test match 40 years later.
Travel south from central Detroit, and the first country you'll come to (which isn't the USA) is Canada - Windsor specifically iirc.
Edit - response to jon
Why it's true
...Edit...OK I get it...
tartiflette was 'invented' in the 1980s as a means of selling more rebluchon cheese.
Untrue.
umm the border between canada and usa is not a linear line.
[url= http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=windsor+usa&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hq=&hnear=Windsor,+ON,+Canada&gl=uk&ei=G2KHTc_lE4G2hAe9ppW3BA&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=image&resnum=1&ved=0CCEQ8gEwAA ]windsor/detroit[/url]
you'd have to pass through central America no?
[img] 
[/img]
The panama canal was under US jurisdiction...until 1999. That canada one is coming out when i need to bore the kids next on a long journey.
Uranus is the only planet that rotates on its side.
Uranus is the only planet that rotates on its side.
Uranus is not a planet 😉
EDIT: oh wait, am I thinking of Pluto?
EDIT 2: yes I was, d'oh! 😀
Did you know
A chameleon’s tongue is twice the length of its body.
A woodpecker can peck twenty times a second.
A cow gives nearly 200,000 glasses of milk in her lifetime.
Dolphins sleep with one eye open!
A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out.
A cat’s jaw cannot move sideways.
An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain.
All polar bears are left handed.
Ants don’t sleep.
Dragonflies can fly at up to 30 mph.
Flamingos are not naturally pink. They get their color from their food.
Bats always turn left when exiting a cave.
The muzzle of a lion is like a fingerprint. No two lions have the same pattern of whiskers.
Bats always turn left when exiting a cave.
That is a keeper.
The dot over the letter 'i' is called a tittle. 😯
The muzzle of a lion is like a fingerprint. No two lions have the same pattern of whiskers.
That only because you can only check one lion before you get your head bitten off.
umm the border between canada and usa is not a linear line.
I got it now 😳
All polar bears are left handed.
Polar Bears don't have hands
organic355 - MemberThe dot over the letter 'i' is called a tittle.
And the cross on a 't' is called a jot.
Flamingos are not naturally pink. They get their color from their food.
why is their food pink?
why is their food pink?
Raspberries generally are
Hedgehog's can happily live without their flea's, opposed to the "well-known" urban myth that they can't. Hedgehog flea's tend to be a specific hedgehog type but not always, and you use a bird lice/flea treatment on hedgehog's not a cat/dog one.
They can also travel up to 2miles a night in search of food.
Paperclips will be trombones from now on at my desk
I have a rusty paperclip on my desk 😯
Wow these facts are Amaaaaazin
Hyperpolysyllabicomania is a fondness for big words.
When people tell you that we fought the First Wortld War to protect democracy, remind them that we were the only major power that entered the conflict without universal male suffrage.
Weebles wobble, but they don't fall down
Glenmorangie boasts that it is handcrafted by "The Sixteen Men of Tain." This is actually a lie. Why?
I'll give you the answer to this, as no-one cares. (-:
Glenmorangie is currently hand-crafted by the fifteen men and one woman of Tain, but that doesn't scan so well.
A woodpecker can peck twenty times a second.
Not all woodpeckers do the high speed drilling thing. Indeed, I believe that in the UK you can tell which pecker it is by the sound of its drilling. But I can't remember which way round it is.
When people tell you that we fought the First Wortld War to protect democracy
Tell them they are clueless - surely? WWI had nothing to do with democracy, did it?
The barnacle goose is so named because its feet look like barnacles
I thought it was because people assumed they hatched from barnacles? They do have striking similarities.
Longest word in the dictionary is Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, which is a lung disease you can get from standing too close to an erupting Volcano.
If you spin two certain metals in opposite directions you can create anti-gravity, I can't remember the metals and it took a guy his whole lifetime to find the right ones.
The dry valley in Antarctica is the driest place on earth. The Attacama Desert is 2nd.
this woodpecker is hard as nails 😀
The female Tasmanian Devil has 30-40 young at a time but has only four teats... Tough start to life.
It isn't possible to make a jelly that is self-supporting more then 18 inches tall.
You're more likely to be kicked to death by a donkey then die in an aircrash.
The average length of the male, er, member is 4 inches. Sex on average lasts 4 minutes. Intercourse is, on average, done at a rate of 30 strokes per minute. So an average shag covers 40 feet. So you'd, on average, need to do it 132 times to cover a mile.
the term trivia comes from the the latin trivium [crossroads] or the three roads in to rome depending on etimology where people used to exchange gossip.
It also formed the trivia of medieval education of grammar, rhetoric and logic.
Quadrivium was geometry, music , arithmetic and astronomy and was more advanced that triva or the basics
If you put nutella and marmalade in a butty it tastes a bit like a jaffa cake
Completely useless but think it counts. The chef/caretaker in The Shining was also the voice of Hong Kong Phuey. I was worse for wear when I got told this so wasn't sure if I dreamt it or not and never bothered to look it up. The things you discuss in the pub!
Bob Greaves went bonkers, and whilst in a mental home he tried to flush some puppies down the toilet. RIP Bob Greaves.
snowslave - Member
If you put nutella and marmalade in a butty it tastes a bit like a jaffa cake
POSTED 15 MINUTES AGO # REPORT-POST
moreso if you swap the bread for a sponge finger
Completely useless but think it counts. The chef/caretaker in The Shining was also the voice of Hong Kong Phuey. I was worse for wear when I got told this so wasn't sure if I dreamt it or not and never bothered to look it up. The things you discuss in the pub!
I think this is what you'd call a near miss.
The unfortunately named Scatman Crothers voiced Hong Kong Phooey and played Dick Hallorann in The Shining. Dick Hallorann, however, wasn't the Indian Chief bloke, he was the bald-headed black guy who shows them around at the beginning.
[img][/img]
Hong Kong Phooey, yesterday.
Bob Greaves went bonkers, and whilst in a mental home he tried to flush some puppies down the toilet.
I fear this may be a fib.
The unfortunately named Scatman Crothers voiced Hong Kong Phooey and played Dick Hallorann in The Shining. Dick Hallorann, however, wasn't the Indian Chief bloke, he was the bald-headed black guy who shows them around at the beginning.
He also played the voice of Jazz in the cartoon of transfomers!
water is most dense at 4 deg C
Hot water freezes in less time than cold water. It's called the Mpemba effect
many of the play ground rhymes we knew as kids (70's / 80's) were written by an advertising copy writer.
he wondered how things would spread by word of mouth, (pre-interweb the playground was the social network) so he'd send his kids into school with a rhyme he wrote,
one of his that i remember was "my uncle billy had a 10 foot willy...."
Cheers cougar. In my defence I was three sheets to the wind at the time 🙂
Three_Fish - MemberEdinburgh is further west than Carlisle.
Itz also further west than Bristol
Tartiflette,nom,nom,nom.
Ian