The French call paperclips “Les Trombones”. So do I.

The phrase “Money for old rope” comes from when hangmen would sell bits of the noose rope as a tasteful souvenir to commemorate the hanging of an infamous criminal.

Contrary to popular belief, a penny dropped from the Empire State Building / Eiffel Tower / space will not kill a person or crack the pavement. The terminal velocity of a penny is only around 50 miles an hour.

The word “maverick” comes form the name of a cattle owner who refused to brand his cattle

getting a patient to slowly work through the dance moves to the macarena is an incredibly effective way of stopping an anxiety/panic attack, and when they realise you’ve just made them do the macarena you’ve just got to hope they’ve got a sense of humour!

A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.

A pig’s orgasm lasts for 30 minutes.

A whale’s penis is called a dork.

The collective name for a group of elk is a gang

The collective name for a group of otters is a romp

The collective name for a group of slags is a limousine

random I think you’ll find it’s a St Tropez of slags 😉

It is thought that the phrase “the rule of thumb” comes from old english law that you could beat your wife with a stick so long as it was no thicker than your thumb!

It is often attributed to Judge Buller in the 1700s who was notoriously harsh in his punishments.

It cannot be substantiated however because this law never existed in statute.

Spiral staircases go clockwise up so that those defending the tower have the advantage of a less restricted sword hand.

Not sure if this is true, but people seem to believe it when I tell them.

Fawlty Towers had canned laughter.

The world record largest football attendance was the 1950 world cup final between Brazil and Uruguay at just under 200,000 in the Maracana stadium.

Roy Castle tap-danced 1,000,000 steps on Record Breakers in 24 hours

Marilyn Manson ISN’T Paul from the Wonder Years

Marilyn Manson ISN’T Paul from the Wonder Years

that’s obvious, paul from the wonder years is cool whereas brian is tit with no musical ability and is about as scary and demonic as sister wendy

that is quite scary tho…

sc-xc – Member
Spiral staircases go clockwise up so that those defending the tower have the advantage of a less restricted sword hand.

Not sure if this is true, but people seem to believe it when I tell them.

Correct. However, there is one, and only one British castle (I forget which) where the stairs go the ‘wrong’ way because the lord was left-handed.

you can read my PhD on hay meadows and cow shite if you want?

“When i’m cleaning windows” by George Formby was banned by the BBC due to it’s suggestive lyrics but, following a public outcry, the decision was overturned.

I thought money for old rope was sailors selling ropes

The football / string one is quite cool, I worked out something similar one day purely out of boredom, sat in roadworks on the M25.

I thought, i wonder how much further it is to circuit the M25 in the inside lane of the clockwise carriageway (the outer one) compared to the inside lane of the anti-cw one, thinking that on a ‘circle’ that big it might be some distance.

So approximating it as a circle, I estimated the difference in radius to be maybe 20m. So, circumference of inner = pi x diam of inner; circumference of outer = pi x (diam+40) Cancel out and you’re left with the difference as pi x 40 = about 125m.

So my quiz question would be: if Usain Bolt cloned and then raced himself around the m25, one in the inner lane, one in the outer, how much headstart should he allow to make it a decent race?

an m6 bolt can hold about 1000kg

Shinola – as in ‘he don’t know sh•t from shinola – was an American brand of waxy shoe polish.

I thought it was hair cream?

Edukator – where we stayed the play parks and fields were deserted until late April, and when they did appear they were bundled up ridiculously, not removing hat, gloves and winter coats until it reached the high teens. Old German women scowled and shouted at us presumably for under-dressing our kid.

By far the most amusing house name i pass on my local roads is…

http://www.geolocation.ws/v/W/4d5ab61d1d41c86ece070103/spunkie-cottage–roadside-cottage-near/en

Polar bears aren’t left or right handed. They don’t have hands.

The HP sauce you buy abroad is shit and not the same as the stuff you get back home. I found out the hard way 🙁