[Closed] Trivia please. Useful, useless or strange.

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 - Moderator

The 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! 😀