Category Archives: Trivia
A little known fact
A second tranche of figures has just been released from the 2011 census and all the important details have been teased out and widely published. But what about the more obscure facts?
Well the main one that leapt out for me was the fact that more people in London’s Kensington and Chelsea describe themselves as working in mining and quarrying than in Gateshead, although the figures – 207 and 151 individuals respectively – are not exactly large.
The decline of the coal industry in England and Wales has been well documented and about 2,000 people now work in coal mines, according to the National Union of Mineworkers, compared with more than a million at the industry’s height in the early 1900s. The mining and quarrying industry as a whole employs 46,478, according to the 2011 Census, 
down 12,913 on 2001.
These people may of course work in management or for large international mining conglomerates such as Rio Tinto, which has its headquarters in London – unless some of the Kent miners have won the lottery and moved to the Big Smoke or there’s something going on underneath the High Street that no-one has told us about!
Now that’s what you call a ‘boob’!
As if teenage girls aren’t body conscious enough, found on sale recently was this card, produced by Hallmark:
The company hurried to apologise for the blunder and by Friday afternoon had posted a statement on its website agreeing that the card was inappropriate, and claiming it had not been published in the last 15 years. They have promised to track down any remaining copies of the card and remove them from sale.
Now I like risqué cards as much as the next person but I genuinely believe that we have to be extremely careful when dealing with impressionable teens and big corporations should definitely behave more responsibly – I wonder if there are any cards out there referencing a teenage boy’s ‘bits’ to even up the score???
Witty Wednesday
A penguin walks into a shop and asks the assistant: ‘Do you have any grapes?’ ‘No,’ he replies.
The same thing happens the next day, and the day after. On the third day the assistant replies: ‘No, and if you come in asking for grapes again I will nail your flippers to the floor!’
The next day the penguin walks in and asks: ‘Got any nails? ‘No,’ replies the assistant. ‘Got any grapes?’ the penguin asks. BOOM!!!
Often there is a simpler solution
When NASA started sending astronauts into space, they quickly discovered that ballpoint pens would not work at zero gravity. To combat the problem, NASA scientists spent a decade and $12 billion developing a pen that wrote at zero gravity, upside down, underwater, on almost any surface including glass and at temperatures ranging from below freezing to 300C.
The Russians used a pencil. BOOM!!!
What day is it?
The good folks at Google are marking St Andrew’s Day today with one of their celebrated Doodles.
Although most commonly associated with Scotland, Saint Andrew is also the patron saint of Greece, Romania, Russia, Ukraine and the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople [wherever that might be!?]
There are some very strange customs that are associated with this day, including:
-
If an unwed girl prays honestly to St Andrew the night before (29th November), she will be granted a good and caring husband
- At exactly midnight, unwed girls should throw a shoe at the exit of the house. If the tip of the shoe is pointing towards the exit then she will marry a noble and caring person and will leave her house within one year
- Unwed girls should also peel an apple in one piece and then throw the peel backwards. The letter which the peel has formed will be the first letter of the name of her future husband
- It was traditional to eat a single sheep’s head on St Andrew’s Day
- In Romania the women don’t just pray for husbands, they put 41 grains of wheat under their pillow. If they dream someone will steal the grains, it apparently means they’ll get married the following year.
The Scottish flag, the Saltire, has the white diagonal ‘cross of St. Andrew’ on a blue background and is widely flown in Scotland. It would be natural to suppose therefore that Scots would celebrate St Andrew’s Day on November 30th in a big way. THEY DON’T. TV and radio mention the fact that it IS St. Andrew’s Day but that is about as far as it goes for most Scots.
However, in 2006, the Scottish Parliament passed the St. Andrew’s Day Bank Holiday (Scotland) Act 2007, which designated the Day as an official bank holiday. If November 30 falls on a weekend, the next Monday is a bank holiday instead. Although that day is a bank holiday under that act, banks are not required to close (and don’t) and other employers are not required to give their employees the day off as a holiday. So it is more of a “voluntary public holiday” rather than a proper bank holiday. So far, few companies have negotiated the day as a staff holiday, though staff in Scottish government departments and a few local government authorities happily get an extra day off.
As every Scot knows, the time to celebrate Scottishness is Burns Night, January 25th. The poet Rabbie Burns holds a place of affection in the minds of Scots all over the world and perhaps this is why St Andrew’s Day passes with relatively little to mark it.
and the answer is …
Well of course it’s me! Calista Flockhart was born on 11th November 1964, Demi Moore the 11th November 1962 and me, well I’m a tad older than that!!! Were you right?
Birthday Quiz
Just a bit of fun … I’ll give you the answers tomorrow so no cheating!
Today, November 11th, marks not only my birthday, but those of Demi Moore and Calista Flockhart – but who is the oldest? Take a look at these photos and let me know what your thoughts are:
Farewell old friend
BBC Ceefax, the world’s first teletext service, has taken its final bow as the UK’s digital switchover is completed.
Ceefax was launched on 23 September 1974 to give BBC viewers the chance to check the latest news headlines, sports scores, weather forecast or TV listings – in a pre-internet era where the only alternative was to wait for the next TV or radio bulletin to be aired. Its premise was to give viewers free access to the same information that was coming into the BBC newsroom, as soon as the BBC’s journalists had received it.
Initially developed when BBC engineers, exploring ways to provide subtitles to enable viewers with hearing problems to enjoy BBC TV programmes, found it was possible to transmit full pages of text information in the “spare lines” transmitted on the analogue TV signal.
It was called Ceefax, simply because viewers would be able to quickly “see the facts” of any story of the day.
Its audience peaked in the 1990s when it had 20 million viewers who checked the service at least once a week. Since the launch of the National Lottery in 1994, dozens of jackpot winners have revealed that they first learned their life had been changed when they checked their numbers on Ceefax.
Anyone who grew up in the 70s, 80s, and 90s will be familiar with Ceefax but because of the wonders of technology, these teletext-type services are no longer our go-to resource for the latest news and weather. ITV and Channel 4’s Teletext was shut off in 2009 and now those with a soft spot for the BBC’s Ceefax have been cut off, too.
Today we’ve seen Twitter users are sharing #Ceefax memories and wishing the old girl farewell. The image below is currently doing the rounds. I’m not sure who’s behind it but it certainly gave me a smile.
The launch of the UK’s TV digital signal, and the announcement that the analogue TV signal would disappear in a staged switch-off over five years meant a slow withdrawal of Ceefax, ending with the final broadcast tonight in Northern Ireland when Olympic Gold Medallist, Mary Peters, had the dubious honour of ending the service.
Another happy memory consigned to the virtual rubbish bin after 38 years of loyal service – what will we see disappear next?
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