My sister has just rung me to say that if the population of China were to walk past you one at a time, the line would NEVER END because the population is expanding so rapidly. This is a random fact. I'm not sure what I am supposed to do with it? Should I be happy to know this? horrified? Impressed that the chinese babies can apparently learn to walk so quickly?
Who works this stuff out though, and why? Seriously, could they not be doing better things with their time - like solving world poverty, working out how to make ladder proof tights or how to stop cats from succumbing to their inner thief?
So, having inflicted you with my sister's random factoid, here are some other odd things that I know and which are of no use to man or beast:
* The Spanish mined so much silver in Bolivia in the 19th century that they could have built a bridge of silver between South America and Spain and walked over it carrying more silver and probably wearing silver clothes.
* A chameleon's tongue is twice the length of its body.
* Carnivorous animals won't eat another animal that has been struck by lightning.
* The phrase 'rule of thumb' comes from an old english law that says you can't beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb.
* Chimpanzees can recognise themselves in a mirror, but monkeys can't.
* Women blink nearly twice as much as men.
* Oscar Wilde's last words were "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do"
* Cockroaches can live for NINE DAYS after their head has been cut off.
There, that should do for now.
Z’s favourite books age 17-24 months
1 week ago
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9 comments:
Right then
Apparently cockroaches taste of pineapple...
Charles Dickens' last words were: 'It's on the floor!'
Big scary jungle ants with razor sharp pincer things can act as stitches for a wound. You let them bite the edges together (don't ask me how. mail Ray) and cut their heads off and the jaws clamp like stitches.
They still use leeches in hospitals to remove excess blood from wounds and to freak people out
I take your random facts and raise you!
Damn you. Ok, I'll see your random facts and raise you with these ones:
Ants never sleep.
Da Vinci invented the parachute in 1515
No word in the English dictionary rhymes with 'month'
And who was eating cockroaches to discover that they tasted of pineapple? Makes a change from tasting like chicken I suppose.
"No word in the English dictionary rhymes with 'month'"
The word "sons" rhymes with month if pronounced by someone with a severe lisp.
OK here's my fact:
At the height of his popularity, as a joke Charlie Chaplin entered a Charlie Chaplin lookalike contest under an assumed name. He finished third place!
I actually knew the cockroach one and it still freaks me out every single time I think about it.
OK; some useless facts for you:
Times Magazine's man of the year for 1938 was Adolf Hitler.
Honey is the only food that doesn't spoil.
Earth is the only planet not named after a god.
Slugs are hermaphrodites.
Seriously, did y'all know those things or did you google 'weird and pointless facts'? Because I think if you actually, really knew them all, you are invited to a dinner party at my house because you'll be fabulous entertainment.
I am now sitting her wracking my brain (is that how you spell wracking or should it be racking - as in 'putting your brain on the rack') for a random, weird fact but nothing is springing to mind. Nothing. I feel left out.
As long as you don't serve anything with pineapple in it I'd be more than happy to come!
What can I say, my brain holds nothing helpful but all sorts of odd facts that I can do nothing with. I can't remember how old I am, my friends' childrens names or telephone numbers all of which might be more helpful than random animal facts and old by laws. Here's one more for you:
In Chester, it is still legal to shoot a welshman within the town walls after dark, as long as you shoot them with a crossbow.
Count me in for dinner - will there be fairy cakes and pirate pizza?
In Chester?? I heard it was Yorkshire. And a Scotsman, not a Welshman..
York, not Yorkshire..
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