Rrikipedia

Chess

2010-05-11T14:20:00.002+02:00

Chess is a board game with a very long history. It can be traced back to the 6th-century Indian game caturanga (Sanskrit for "four military divisions"), which spread first to Persia and then via the Arab world to Europe.

By the 10th century it was widespread in Europe, but the rules of the game as played today weren't settled until the 15th century.

The name "chess" comes from the Persian word for king, shah, and the phrase "check mate", which is what you say when you've trapped the opponent's king, comes from the Persian for the "king is dead".

Gold nugget

2010-05-10T14:14:00.003+02:00

Gold is often found in the form of nuggets of almost pure metal. The largest nugget ever found is called Welcome Stranger, weighing in at 78kg, of which 71kg was pure gold. It was dug up in 1869 in Victoria, Australia.

And I've been to the place where they found it!

Flies

2010-05-09T14:10:00.000+02:00

Everyone loves to hate them, but did you know that if it weren't for flies (or, more accurately, their larvae) we would be swimming in a sea of rotten vegetation and dead bodies six metres deep within a year?

Fly larvae eat enormous quantities of, well, how do I put this? crap. Without them, quite apart from all the hungry spiders and bored cats, life as we know it would be impossible because there would just be crap EVERYWHERE.

Peanuts

2010-05-08T14:00:00.003+02:00

They're not nuts!! In fact they're legumes, like peas or beans. But they're weird legumes because instead of hanging on a bush, like peas, the fruit pods of the peanut plant push themselves down into the ground and mature there. Which is why they're also known as ground nuts.

Hailstones

2010-05-07T13:58:00.002+02:00

Hailstones are initially formed high up in the sky, like normal raindrops, when moisture freezes onto a tiny grain of dust. Rain is only liquid because it is falling through warm air.

What makes hailstones different is that there were strong upcurrents of air that pushed the raindrops back up into colder air, where they grew another layer of ice. The larger the hailstone, the more often it was blown back up into the cold air.

Broccoli

2010-05-06T12:18:00.002+02:00

Broccoli is the name not only of the spiky green vegetable (which is incidentally full of cancer-preventing goodness) but also of a famous film producer who was responsible for many James Bond films.

Little finger

2010-05-05T12:17:00.002+02:00

In some people, one of the tendons attaching the little finger to the hand are missing, such that it is not possible to touch the tip of the finger with the tip of the thumb.

I'm one of those unfortunates - but thankfully only in my left hand.

Cheese

2010-05-04T12:10:00.002+02:00

You can freeze cheese. And it tastes pretty much as good as it did when you first bought it.

Not that there's EVER any spare cheese in my house that might need freezing...

Seven sisters

2010-05-03T12:07:00.002+02:00

The constellation Pleiades are known as the Seven Sisters, not only because there were seven of the eponymous Greek myth girls, but also because - in clear skies (ie skies from before the Industrial Revolution) - you can see seven stars twinkling next to each other.

These days of course you're lucky to see four or five. But with a telescope you can see many more than seven. So it's a pretty inaccurate name all round really.

IKEA branding

2010-05-02T10:39:00.000+02:00

We've all been to IKEA: the hot dogs, the friendly signage, the unpronounceable names for each item. And of course, it's blue & yellow, blue & yellow, blue & yellow all the way - which is only right for a Swedish company (the Swedish flag is of course a yellow cross on a blue background). Being Swedish is a huge part of the company's profile.

But did you know that IKEA in Denmark isn't blue & yellow at all, but rather red & white? This is because the Danes (flag: white cross on a red background) hate the Swedes (age-old rivals across the Kattegat sea), and most of them wouldn't be seen dead in that modern-day temple to home furnishings if it were decked out in its national colours.

International Labour Day

2010-05-01T10:36:00.000+02:00

It's the first of May, which in almost every civilised country is a bank holiday to honour the humble worker.

But our dear Margaret Thatcher couldn't bear all this reds-under-the-bed socialism and so decreed that the United Kingdom should have Spring Bank Holiday instead, which would be on the first Monday in May - which of course is usually not 1st May.

Still, at least it means Brits get a guaranteed day off, not like this year in most countries...

Dishwashers

2010-04-30T10:33:00.000+02:00

On the face of it, you'd think a machine that takes over an hour to do your dishes would be horrendously more energy-intensive and wasteful of resources than doing them by hand. (Not that you give a toss about that when faced with the choice of standing in the kitchen and tackling that mountain of crockery, or popping it all in a machine and going off to have a sit down.)

But in fact modern dishwashers use only about as much water as you would to fill the sink. And it really doesn't take much power to make the spinny thing with the nozzles on go round. Yay for dishwashers!!

Colour perception

2010-04-29T10:30:00.000+02:00

The human eye can distinguish between thousands of shades of colour. Just think of all those little rectangles of different colours we choose from when we go and buy paint to freshen up the living room.

But of all the colours, the one that humans can see the greatest number of shades of is green. Perhaps it's because so many things in nature are green that we have this sensitivity to it.

Flavour and flavourings

2010-04-28T10:25:00.000+02:00

It's a popular bit of marketing guff when they say on the side of your yoghurt pot or fruit juice bottle or microwave dinner "no artificial flavours". Because when it comes to flavourings for the food industry, the technical distinction between 'natural' and 'artificial' concerns only the very first step in the production process.

An artificial flavour, as the name suggests, has been cobbled together by scientists. A natural flavour, though, is taken from a naturally occurring object (be it animal, vegetable or mineral).

But from there on in, they're pretty much the same: a microscopic amount of flavour chemicals is then scaled up by industrial means and mass produced in factories. About as natural as the screen you're reading this on.

Zero point energy

2010-04-27T10:13:00.000+02:00

No, it's not just the dastardly energy ray of the fiendish Syndrome in The Incredibles, it's a real thing! And there are plenty of cranks out there who think that it is an inexhaustible source of free energy - but damn those governments and oil companies who are suppressing the truth!

In fact, zero point energy can never be harnessed. It exists, yes, but only as a concept of quantum mechanics, in which it is the lowest possible energy state of a given system.

By implication, getting this zero point energy to do work for humans would mean it would have to drop from its current energy state to an even lower energy state, just like a battery slowly runs out as it powers your PC or car or whatever.

But this is impossible, as it is already at the lowest state possible. So I'm afraid there won't be any perpetual motion machines any time soon...

Early readers

2010-04-26T10:10:00.000+02:00

Back in the days when books were rare, expensive, hand-written things, and most people couldn't read anyway, it was common for people (ie monks) to not be able to read in their heads. Instead they would actually quietly vocalise each word, following the text with their finger and mumbling to themselves.

Aren't we clever these days, we who can read without moving our lips!

Barcodes

2010-04-25T11:36:00.000+02:00

The sight of barcodes on everyday household purchases has become ubiquitous. I can hardly remember a time when supermarkets weren't kitted out with barcode readers at the checkout till. But I can still just about remember it...

In fact barcodes go back much further than my lifetime, to 1948, when their American inventor had a flash of inspiration on a beach and stretched out the dots & dashes of Morse code with his toe in the sand. But it took a long time for them to be adopted as a standard way of identifying products on supermarket shelves.

Stamps

2010-04-24T11:32:00.002+02:00

Great Britain was the first country to issue postage stamps. But everyone knows that! (The Penny Black, a stamp worth one penny that had a picture of the young Queen Victoria on a black background, was the world's first stamp.)

However, not a lot of people know that Britain was the first country to issue stamps that don't have a specific monetary value on them. (Instead, they are marked "1st" or "2nd", in reference to the different classes of postal service available.) And it was only a few decades ago at that!

Ooh, a double dose of factoids today. Aren't you lucky?

Folding paper

2010-04-23T11:30:00.001+02:00

Did you know it's impossible to fold a sheet of paper over on itself more than seven times?

Go on, try it!

Football

2010-04-22T11:26:00.002+02:00

The game of football as we know it today was invented in England at least 150 years ago. But the first "official" (i.e. written down) set of football rules does not govern the main English variety - what other nations call "soccer". In fact it is Australian rules football that has the longest pedigree. Well I never!

Dry elbows

2010-04-21T11:23:00.002+02:00

A handy way to remove unwanted dry skin on your elbows is to rub a squeezed-out half a lemon on them. The citric acid in the remaining lemon flesh gently etches the outer skin layers away, leaving you with elbows like a baby's bottom.

Cat's eyes

2010-04-20T11:19:00.002+02:00

In Britain, roads have a row of studs down the middle with little reflective patches on them. At night, the headlamps of cars pick the studs out and so the driver can tell where the middle of the road is. They look a bit like cat's eyes when they are caught in a beam of light.

This is a fact that Europeans who chortle at British road chaos when it snows are generally not aware of. Especially since it means you can't just scrape all the snow & ice off the road surface with a snowplough without ripping up all the studs as well.

Vitamin C

2010-04-19T17:54:00.001+02:00

Did you know there's more vitamin C in a packet of crisps than there is in an apple?

Badminton popularity

2010-04-18T11:17:00.003+02:00

Studies have shown that badminton is the most popular racket sport in the UK, by which I mean it is the sport played by the most people.

So why don't they show badminton on telly? It's a really gripping sport to watch!

And no, I don't mean people should watch a three-year-old and their granddad knocking a shuttlecock backwards and forwards over a fence in the back garden. I'm talking Olympic or national games.

Credit cards with chips on

2010-04-17T11:22:00.001+02:00

These were invented in Germany in 1968, but first came into use in 1983 in French phone cards. Crazy isn't it!

Crazy cocktails (2)

2010-04-16T15:14:00.002+02:00

I've just had an angry riposte from a (possibly now ex-) friend who followed my advice about mixing vodka citron and galliano to get a drink that tastes of chocolate fudge cake. Apparently, no it doesn't.

Well, I am serenely going to take this complaint as proof of today's fact: that tastes differ. One man's delicious beverage is another man's curdled donkey piss.

Or maybe it was just that I was very, VERY drunk at the time...

Sneezing in the sun

2010-04-15T15:06:00.000+02:00

So I've always had this thing where if I suddenly see direct sunlight I get an urge to sneeze. And I LOVE a good sneeze! So I'll often seek out a direct shaft of sunlight, just to get a sneeze.

But people used to tell me that it was an imagined response, just because they didn't get the same urge.

I've recently learned, however, that this sneezing in sunlight thing is actually very widespread, affecting about a third of people globally. It's even got a posh name: photic sneeze reflex. It seems that the cranial nerve responsible for sneezes is affected by the nerve that carries optical signals to the brain when there's a sudden burst of light.

So there!

Male aim

2010-04-14T14:57:00.000+02:00

Ladies, you may not be aware of this, but in recent years the fiendishly difficult task of peeing INTO a urinal, instead of all over the floor AROUND it, has been made more manageable - and in an ingenious way:

If boys have something to pee on - say a cigarette butt, a coin or a dead fly - their aim becomes much better. Urinal manufacturers have taken advantage of this by printing a small picture near the drain of the urinal. Usually it's a fly, but I recently saw a cute one with a little candle picture instead.

It all started in Amsterdam's Schiphol airport, when an enterprising PhD student studied the efficiency improvement (and associated reduction in cleaning costs) of putting a picture of a fly in the urinals there. I remember my joy at first seeing this little bit of useful art in - ooh, it must have been 1997.

Dates

2010-04-13T14:55:00.001+02:00

And here's another guest factoid, this one from my friend Bernhard who's in Oman right now:

Dates are not only delicious and sweet, but they are also packed full of vitamins & minerals. In fact, the poor people up in the mountains of Oman eat little else.

Fat

2010-04-12T14:53:00.002+02:00

Here's a guest factoid from a 12-year-old girl who I am helping out with her German:

Did you know that women float better than men? It's because they have more body fat.

And it's true: when I was younger & flabbier I used to float really easily, but these days my legs keep sinking & dragging the rest of me down.

The grass IS greener on the other side

2010-04-11T18:07:00.000+02:00

No, really! Because if you're standing in a patch of grass and you look down onto it, then you're looking at the tips of each blade and the chances are you can see some of the brownish soil at the base of the plant.

Whereas, when you look across at the neighbouring bit of grass, you're looking side-on at the blades, and so you see much more greenery.

Youth versus experience

2010-04-10T16:54:00.003+02:00

It is often said that youth, with its exuberant energy but its lack of practice, is a fair match for experience, which may lack the vim of earlier years but has been there and knows a thing or two.

Pity those who have neither youth nor experience on their side - those who fall into the "you can't teach an old dog new tricks" category, but don't even have any old tricks to show off with!

The Doppler effect (2)

2010-04-09T16:49:00.002+02:00

Just like with sound waves, the Doppler effect also applies to light waves. Now, everyone knows that the speed of light is a constant (ie it cannot change), but nevertheless the appearance of light waves does change slightly depending on the relative speeds of the light source and the "eye".

This is how astronomers can tell that the universe is expanding: light from galaxies that are very far away is slightly "decompressed", like the sound of the fire engine as it races away from you. Light from the same kind of source but closer to us appears to have a slightly higher wavelength, like the fire engine as it passes right in front of you.

If the universe were contracting, the light from far-away galaxies would have a higher wavelength than nearby light, like the fire engine as it heads towards you.

The Doppler effect (1)

2010-04-08T16:44:00.002+02:00

Nee-nah, nee-nah! The sirens wail as the police car/ambulance/fire engine whizzes past you on the street. But the pitch of the siren changes: it's higher as the siren approaches you, and lower when it's heading away from you again.

That, my friends, is the Doppler effect in action. Sound is composed of waves of compressed air. Because the siren is moving towards you at speed, the sound waves are compressed slightly more when they hit your ear drum. And, similarly, when the siren is moving away, the sound waves are slightly decompressed by the movement away.

A little bit of physics to keep you on your toes!

Plastic bags

2010-04-07T16:41:00.002+02:00

They're terrible! There's an island of plastic crap floating in the middle of the Pacific Ocean that's made up largely of plastic bags and other non-biodegradable packaging that is the size of Switzerland. That is NOT good for the seas, or the animals that choke on the little bits of plastic, thinking they're food.

So use a cloth bag again & again, or at the very least recycle your placcie bags, people! I use mine as bin bags around the house, for instance.

The upright gait

2010-04-06T16:37:00.002+02:00

Man has evolved, so the latest thinking goes, in such a way as to be able to follow herds of gazelles and such over long distances.

Man is not the fastest animal - cheetahs and pretty much every other animal can run faster. But the bipedal gait that we have is very efficient when it comes to endurance running.

The apes who were to become man were successful not because they were able to ambush their prey with a sudden dash, like a lion, but because they were able to keep up with the herd and wear them down.

It's a pity I hate running, really. I feel like a traitor to my species...

Hungry washing machines

2010-04-05T00:15:00.000+02:00

They say that washing machines have an uncanny ability to eat one - ONE - sock from time to time, leaving you with a single solitary sock that is only really good for turning into a glove puppet.

But this has never happened to me. It's a fact that, as inanimate objects, it's not possible for washing machines to feel hunger. So they wouldn't eat a sock, would they? Silly idea.

I have, however, dropped a single sock from a washing line hanging out of the window of a flat on the twelfth floor (of a block of flats in Spain), which was rather annoying. Does that count?

Number memory

2010-04-04T23:25:00.000+02:00

The average person can remember a string of six or seven numbers (i.e. 3, 6, 1, 4, 7, 7, 2).

This is a handy skill when it comes to knowing people's phone numbers. Like anyone does THAT any more! That's what your mobile phone's memory is for, right kids?

Crazy cocktails

2010-04-03T23:24:00.000+02:00

If you mix Galliano with Absolut Citron, you get a drink that tastes remarkably like chocolate fudge cake. Just a bit more alcoholic.

Body clock

2010-04-02T23:21:00.000+02:00

Our bodies think there are 25 hours in a day, not 24. It's only by means of chemical changes in our bloodstream that our internal clock is reset each day. When daylight hits the eyes, hormones are released that end the sleep cycle and start the waking cycle.

They did tests with volunteers who lived in a cave for a month with no watches. After a month, they were fully a day behind in their reckoning of how much time had passed. Crazy, isn't it!

Carbon

2010-04-01T23:22:00.000+02:00

The first geodesic dome to be built was designed by architect Richard Buckminster-Fuller back in the '50s. And then, half a century later, people managed to create a third stable form of carbon (the other two, naturally occurring ones being graphite and diamond).

These carbon chunks have bonds between atoms that exactly resemble Mr Buckminster-Fuller's domes. So it was natural that the new carbon form should be called buckinster-fullerine.

Like little footballs, they are. Dinky.

Bumble bees

2010-03-31T23:18:00.000+02:00

For the longest time, no-one knew how it was possible for bumble bees to fly. In conventional wisdom, their wings are too small to create the upward force required to actually lift them into the air and keep them there.

It wasn't until camera technology had become sufficiently advanced for the flight of bees to be recorded and slowed down enough to actually see what was going on in the wings that the secret was unlocked: the wings don't just move up & down like a bird's. Instead they swing back & forth as well, causing vortices above some of the wings some of the time that serve to increase the lift.

Good old bumble bees! And they're cute, too.

Muscle pain

2010-03-30T23:15:00.000+02:00

So I'm just back from a vigorous session of badminton, and I'm once again feeling achy all over. But I know it's going to feel a lot worse tomorrow, and even the day after. Why?

The body takes some time to repair the damage done by strenuous exercise. It isn't all over in one night. For the same reason, they say you should do weight training every OTHER day, to give your muscles time to actually heal & grow before making them work hard again.

Cleaning windows

2010-03-29T11:12:00.000+02:00

In these days of super-easy cleaning products, it's no bother to get lovely windows. But in the old days, one good way to ensure a nice sheen was to use cheap newspaper scrunched up after you'd wiped the windows down with soap. This left a thin film of printer's ink on the windows, which made them look extra clean.

SAD syndrome

2010-03-28T20:52:00.000+02:00

I became personally acutely aware again recently of the power of sunlight to change your mood - and, more specifically, of the mood change attributable to the ABSENCE of sunlight:

It's been really springlike here in Munich recently, and going outdoors has been a pleasure, not least because of the effect all this sudden sunlight has on me. I remember from my year in Spain that the world was always a happier place when the sun was out.

And now, just very recently the weather's been a bit iffy again. And I'm a lot sadder than I was. Seasonal Affective Disorder, or SAD syndrome, is the extreme version of this. It affects people especially in northern latitudes, where there really isn't much sun at all for whole chunks of the year.

Thankfully, it can be treated with very bright light. Hooray for that!

Caffeine

2010-03-27T20:50:00.000+01:00

So, there might be more caffeine in your average shot of espresso coffee, but because it's so concentrated the body doesn't actually take much of it up. On the other hand, a coffee that's diluted with lots of milk delivers much more caffeine to your body, because it sticks to the fatty milky bits and doesn't just pass straight out of you again.

Which is why you won't have difficulty sleeping after an espresso after your dinner.

Belly button fluff

2010-03-26T17:22:00.002+01:00

I reckon I could have filled a couple of duvets with the amount of fluff I've picked out of my belly button over the years. Who would have thought that such an innocent little feature of my body could be so voracious a muncher of my clothes?

Fact is, if you've got a bit of a paunch then you're going to get belly button fluff. I've yet to test whether skinny people with inny belly buttons also get fluff. Once I've done some more research, I'll get back to you.

Telepathy

2010-03-25T17:21:00.002+01:00

It's out there. I myself have an uncanny ability to know, just before it happens, that my sister is going to call me. And she has the same ability with me.

Okay, it doesn't happen every single time we call each other, but it really does happen most times. Crazy, huh?

Printer toner

2010-03-24T17:19:00.002+01:00

Gramme for gramme, printer toner is more expensive than gold. No, really!

And another thing: the cheeky monkeys that make printer cartridges have made sure that the printer says the cartridge is empty WAY before it actually is. Then, when you return your old cartridge & get a new one, they pour the leftover toner from your old cartridge into a new one. They're selling the stuff over & over again!

Repeated behaviours

2010-03-23T17:04:00.002+01:00

Why is it that we do things we know are really not a great idea? Why is it we do them again and again?

For instance, the other night I was about to go out, but I quickly wanted to check my email. I switched on my PC, and then was told there was some Microsoft update that needed to be installed. Instead of NOT installing it, because I really only had ten minutes before I had to leave my flat, I went ahead and hit Install. Even though I knew, deep down, that there was a snowball's chance in hell of the install completing before I had to leave.

So, of course, it took ages & ages, and I ended up leaving my PC on while I was out, which I try not to do so as to save electricity and thereby - albeit indirectly - the planet.

Temperature effects on metal

2010-03-22T17:02:00.002+01:00

We think of metal as being solid, almost immutable - especially in "normal" conditions (ie not in a furnace). But in fact even the usual variability of outside air temperature can have noticeable effects on metal.

For instance, in the recent bout of warmer weather here in Munich, I've noticed that my bicycle lock has become much more pliable than it was during the cold, cold winter we've been having.

Phonemes

2010-03-21T16:58:00.002+01:00

It's important to start learning foreign languages as young as possible. This takes advantage of the child brain's built-in ability to learn to copy adults in the way they communicate verbally.

But if you want to talk like a native, then you have to have exposure to a language before you're 18 months old. It's true! They did tests with Eskimo children that they swapped with Chinese children (cruel, but hey) for the first few years of their lives. The ones who spent more than eighteen months away from their birthplace were no longer able to exactly reproduce the sounds of the language of their birthplace, but were fully able to pronounce their "adopted" language.

I'm not advocating baby-swapping, but I am advocating foreign language learning. Do it - and get your kids to do it too!

Global Warming

2010-03-20T16:58:00.001+01:00

It's a fact.

Herbs

2010-03-19T21:52:00.002+01:00

I'm on a bit of a food-fact roll here, but that's just the way the, er, cookie crumbles!

So I was making my nephew cook bolognese sauce today (compassion with a hard edge, I think they call it) and instead of throwing in loads of salt, as Germans have a habit of doing, I deliberately didn't use any salt at all. Instead, we used a whole load of herbs & spices. And the resulting sauce was, though I say so myself, quite delightful!

So my fact is, if you've got enough flavour going on, then you really don't need too much salt.

Melty chocolate

2010-03-18T21:47:00.002+01:00

The secret of the appeal of chocolate is its melting point: it's a solid at room temperature, but turns to a gooey naughtiness at body temperature. And it's this change in state that excites our taste buds & whatnot in the mouth, and gives rise to the body's interest in the substance.

Coffee grounds

2010-03-17T21:45:00.002+01:00

Coffee grounds make an excellent alternative to expensive - and chemically evil - sink deblocking products. Just rinse your used coffee grounds down the sink plughole. On a microscopic level, each individual bit of coffee bean is rough-edged and therefore abrasive, so as they're flushing through the pipes they scour all the gunk and nastiness off the walls. Fab!

Boiling water

2010-03-16T21:42:00.000+01:00

There's a lot of fuss about food miles, carbon footprints and whatnot. But in fact the environmental impact of cooking some potatoes is much less dependent on where the potatoes came from, and much more dependent on whether you cook them in a pan with the lid on or off.

For the avoidance of doubt, cooking them with the lid on is much more environmentally friendly, as lots of energy is wasted in the form of steam if there's no lid to keep the heat in.

So there! Get boiling with the lid on, people!

Badminton

2010-03-15T16:34:00.002+01:00

It's a shame they don't show more badminton on the telly, because people think it's quite a sissy sort of sport, but in fact it's like a cross between squash and chess: you've got the mad swinging of the racket, but also a very tactical side to the game.

This is made possible by the way the shuttlecock flies: it starts off super duper fast, enabling you to smash it past the opponent before they can react, but then it slows down really fast too, which means you can lob it to the back of the court, beyond the opponent's reach, but it will then fall straight downwards right into the corner of the court. Your point. Nice one!

Cosmic mantas

2010-03-14T16:30:00.000+01:00

It's amazing, but manta rays have such an aura! When you dive with them, you can totally feel their presence. And I don't just mean the huge shadow they cast (with a wingspan of up to four metres).

The last time, at Koh Bon, west of Thailand, we were just swimming about underwater, minding our own business and generally looking at the coral, when suddenly this silence seemed to descend on the reef and its little inhabitants. And then, these two mantas slid gracefully into view. I was transfixed. Wow!

Perfect rice

2010-03-13T16:28:00.000+01:00

My tip is as follows: one cup of rice, one-and-a-half cups of cold water, pinch of salt, bring the rice to the boil, put the lid on, turn the heat off, and leave it for at least 20 minutes. DON'T take the lid off during this time! It's the residual steam that is cooking the rice.

Whenever I do it this way, it's perfect: a slight al dente crunch but no nasty hardness, no soggy bits at the bottom of the pan, and it doesn't even stick together (but is still glutinous enough to be eaten with chopsticks).

Hangovers

2010-03-12T16:27:00.000+01:00

The most effective way to avoid a huge hangover the day after you've been drinking a little too much tipple is to drink absolutely stacks of water all through the night, whenever you wake up because you're too drunk to really sleep deeply.

Well, it works for me anyway.

The equator

2010-03-10T23:49:00.002+01:00

I was listening to my favourite podcast, www.timesonline.co.uk/thebugle and I have to take exception to something they said. It was (preposterously) claimed that water DOESN'T go down the plughole the other way in the southern hemisphere from the way it does in the northern hemisphere. But this is very much the case - and I know because I've seen it many a time myself.

It's all to do with the coriolis forces created by the rotation of the earth combined. I could get all sciency, but I'd probably get it wrong, so I'll leave it there.

But I visited a hydroelectric power station once in Chile and the station manager told me they'd had special turbines built that turned the other way from ones in the northern hemisphere, to capture the ever-so-slight improvement in efficiency from having the water spin through the turbine the way it "ought" to in Chile. They wouldn't have bothered if there weren't some discernible difference.

Blaring music on trains

2010-03-09T23:47:00.000+01:00

Isn't it funny how, about 20 years ago, people were getting totally stressed about people having Walkmans playing through headphones that were pretty crappy and sent most of the sound not into the wearer's ears but seemingly into everyone else's. But now kids are playing music on their mobile phones and not even bothering with the pretence of headphones, but no-one seems to be getting outraged by all this noise.

Avoiding hangovers

2010-03-08T23:44:00.001+01:00

I like the fact that the words for "wine" and "beer" sound very similar in English and German, where the corresponding words are "wein" and "bier".

Which means that the little rhyme you use to decide what order to drink your various alcoholic drinks in to avoid a monster hangover also sound pretty similar:

"Wine then beer, feeling queer. Beer then wine, feeling fine."
"Wein nach Bier, das rat' ich dir. Bier nach Wein - dagegen sein!"

And, handily, they both suggest the same ideal order: beer before wine.

SMSs

2010-03-07T23:43:00.000+01:00

It can't be a coincidence: pretty much whenever I write someone a text message, my text manages to be exactly 160 characters long - which is of course the maximum number of characters allowed in a single SMS. Maybe I'm like a texting god or something.

Concrete

2010-03-06T23:41:00.000+01:00

Did you know that it takes up to 100 years for concrete to completely dry? At first that seems absurd, but if you think about it it makes sense: as soon as the outer bits have hardened and dried, it's going to be tricky for any moisture still on the inside of the mix to find its way out into the atmosphere.

Wine bottles

2010-03-05T23:37:00.000+01:00

Not that I ever have any wine in the house - oh no! - but it's interesting to think about the different ways to seal a bottle of wine. Traditionally, of course, winemakers have used cork, which is the spongy bark of the cork tree. But in more recent times people have used plastic, or even screw tops.

In fact, screw tops are the best at not letting in any air: wine starts to turn to vinegar when it comes into contact with oxygen. But some people claim that wine needs to be ever-so-slightly exposed to air in order to mature. Just how much of that particular argument is financed by the global cork producing lobby I don't know...

Recycling

2010-03-04T23:34:00.000+01:00

Strange but true: in the UK, you're supposed to put Tetrapak containers - you know, those sort-of cardboard packs that are used to package milk, juice, soups, that sort of thing - with paper in your recycling. But in Germany, you put them in with the plastics.

This will be because Tetrapak is made of thin layers of paper and plastic sandwiched together. It's neither one nor the other, but indeed both.

Pasta

2010-03-03T23:33:00.000+01:00

Never pour oil on your pasta after you've cooked it! It won't be able to absorb any of the sauce you put on top, and the whole mouthfeel of the dish is altered.

PCs

2010-03-02T15:21:00.002+01:00

Why is my PC suddenly so slow? Do they build in obsolescence in some secret way, like they do with cars (where they deliberately use bits that rust or snap or in some other way will definitely need replacing)? It's a couple of years old now, admittedly, but it was quite a zippy one to start with. Now it seems to struggle just to refresh the bloody screen!

Or is it just the case that software becomes increasingly complex over time, such that all those ever-so-necessary security updates etc. just add massive amounts of difficulty to your standard programmes, on the assumption that, as some sort of capitalist corollary to Moore's Law (which is basically that computers double in amazingness every 18 months), people are buying themselves newer, faster, better computers all the time anyway and it doesn't matter if the ones from three years ago seem to be made out of balsawood for all their computing punch?

Okay, this blog was more of a moan than a fact - but I mentioned Moore's Law, so that counts...

Food colours

2010-03-01T15:17:00.002+01:00

Isn't it funny how some foods are always one colour - in your mind at least. And then, when they're served to you with another colour, they just don't look at all appetising. Even if it's a colour that a different food (which is normally that colour) would look very appetising in.

This happened to me recently with a plate of scrambled eggs that had been made with delicious pumpkin seed oil from the Austrian region of Styria (where that oil is a particular speciality). Now, I was all ready for a yellow dish, and then when it was served it was the colour of guacamole. Now, guacamole I love, among other things precisely BECAUSE of its delicate shade of green.

But with the eggs I couldn't help myself: I had to mime emptying the contents of my right nostril onto the plate. Because that's what it looked like. But it was yum.

Kettle

2010-02-28T15:14:00.002+01:00

Kettles use an extraordinary amount of electricity. I saw a review of one of those machines you can buy which measures in real time your electricity consumption in your house, and the reviewer said when he boiled his kettle the machine showed such a massive spike in energy usage, it made him totally conscious of only putting into the kettle as much water as he actually needed for his cup of tea.

Which ties in neatly with the UK's National Grid having up-to-the-second information on what was on telly, so that for instance during the commercial break in an episode of Coronation Street they could quickly switch on a whole extra nuclear power station, to cover the nation's kettles being switched on. Mad but true!

Carrots

2010-02-27T17:49:00.001+01:00

It's worth splashing out and buying organic carrots, because they really DO taste so much better. With other vegetables, the improvement in taste you get from going organic seems more subtle, but with carrots it just slaps you in the face.

Grip

2010-02-26T17:46:00.002+01:00

Here's one that occurred to me as I looked down at my bike tyres today, thinking that they needed pumping up:

If you're driving across sand dunes, it's important to deflate your car tyres by quite a bit, in order to increase the grip on the slippery surface.

Then I thought it's probably just as well my bike tyres aren't full, given how much grit is lying on the roads at this snowy time of year...

Guest fact: moles

2010-02-25T16:23:00.002+01:00

My dear friend Ali wants me to share this little factoid with you:

Moles tie knots in worms. It's true.

So watch out down there under the soil, folks!

Europe's largest monument

2010-02-24T16:16:00.002+01:00

I've been there, and it's impressive: the Monument to the Battle of the Nations, which stands on a hill just outside the centre of Leipzig. It commemmorates the victory over Napoleon in 1813 by a coalition of Prussians, Russians and Austrians, which was the beginning of the end for old Bonaparte.

And there's a great view from the top!

Alcohol in beers

2010-02-23T16:12:00.003+01:00

If you drink a 330ml bottle of beer that's 5% alcohol, you consume less alcohol than if you drink a 355ml bottle of beer that's only 4.9% alcohol. In fact, the beer would have to be under 4.6% alcohol for there to be less alcohol in it than in the other, smaller but stronger bottle.

Rubber bands

2010-02-22T21:39:00.001+01:00

They're great for opening jars. Just put a rubber band or two right around the lid, and then open the jar as per normal with your hand. The rubber gives you extra grip, and this is almost always enough to get the lid off. Hooray!

Truite au bleu

2010-02-21T21:37:00.002+01:00

If you poach a trout in not just water but 2/3 water and 1/3 tarragon vinegar, its scales will turn blue. But you have to make sure you don't wash the fish too thoroughly before putting it in the water, otherwise it won't work.

Yum!

Romanian

2010-02-20T21:35:00.002+01:00

Romanian is a language that has evolved from Latin, but because it is surrounded by Slavic languages it's no surprise to learn that it has lots of loan words from Slavic.

It's easy for Romanians to learn Italian because lots of pairs of synonyms in Romanian have one Slavic root and one Latin root. So even if the Latin-derived word isn't very common, chances are a Romanian will have heard it somewhere along the way, and will recognise the corresponding word in an Italian text.

There you go.

Beanbags

2010-02-19T17:41:00.000+01:00

Here's something banal but yet strangely comfortable that I learned whilst in Milan: the beanbag was invented there! I shall in future slouch on them with the satisfaction of knowing that I am, figuratively speaking, a hair's breadth away from a fashion catwalk...

Bananas

2010-02-18T17:24:00.000+01:00

Bananas can't reproduce sexually. They're all clones.

Body hair

2010-02-17T17:23:00.000+01:00

Blonde people have less hair than brunettes, and redheads have even less hair than blondes. Not just on their head either: body hair is also more widely spaced on people with lighter coloured hair. Crazy isn't it!

Tadpoles

2010-02-16T17:22:00.000+01:00

Tadpoles are supposed to turn into frogs in like a few months at most. But there are some tadpoles that don't become frogs that year at all! Or at least, we had a couple of tadpoles that were MUCH bigger than their brethren in our pond a few years in a row. And that's a fact.

Cars

2010-02-15T17:18:00.000+01:00

I overheard some people talking about electric cars the other day, and how it will take time for people to become used to not using their ears so much when on the road. This was based on the theory that electric vehicles are much much quieter than petrol- or diesel-driven cars.

But in fact, in recent years car technology has come on so far that the biggest source of noise from a passing car is in fact the sound of the air escaping from between the tyres and the road! So it shouldn't be as much of a big adjustment after all.

Revolutionary fact

2010-02-14T19:58:00.000+01:00

Here's another one from Lorna:

Che Guevara was very severely asthmatic, and in fact a lot of the time he was being a guerrilla he was being carried by other guerrillas. He was a stubborn chappie who, having been trained as a medical doctor, also knew how to inject himself with steroids. He'd have made a fine Olympic athlete, methinks...

From the deep

2010-02-13T19:56:00.000+01:00

Did you know that more people die each year through being hit on the head by a coconut than get eaten by sharks?

And I KNOW it's true: I counted them myself!

(Well, maybe not, but hey...)

Entry from Milan

2010-02-12T19:51:00.001+01:00

Here's a guest factoid from my friend Lorna, who I'm visiting in Milan this week:

If you yawn, chances are someone who is watching you yawn will also have to yawn.

So, there you go folks!

Lorna has been kind enough to furnish me with a supposition to go with her fact, namely that if you see someone YOU LIKE yawning you'll yawn, but if you DON'T like them you won't.

So there!!

Public transport?

2010-02-11T10:50:00.003+01:00

They did tests to compare the energy efficiency of a big electric train versus each of the passengers driving their own car to their destination. The train turned out to be LESS efficient - but only because of all the stops. If it had just gone from London to Edinburgh without stops, it would have been much more efficient than doing the same trip in 600 cars. But each time it had to slow down, stop, and speed up again it used loads of energy. What a pity!

Oops! One for yesterday

2010-02-11T10:47:00.002+01:00

Erm, err, um, oh, I know:

Banana skins make an excellent alternative to shoe polish. I know this for a fact because I've been feeding my lovely leather satchel with nothing but banana for the last couple of years. The only drawback is that, in summer months, if I leave my bag lying on the grass it's covered in ants after about ten minutes...

One from my childhood

2010-02-09T09:10:00.001+01:00

Did you know that if you put the planet Jupiter in a bowl of water, it would float? Okay, so you'd need a freaky big bowl, and I'm not sure how the whole gravity thang would work out with that much extra sloshing about, but IT'S TRUE! So there!

Snowy inspiration

2010-02-08T22:15:00.002+01:00

It became clear to me whilst sitting on a skilift with my nephews today that snowflakes are like velcro: how else could so much snow sit on a tiny little twig, unless it's that the snowflakes are linking into each other with their little pointy endy bits, in much the same way the hooky side of a velcro fastening hooks onto the fluffly side? That, and not weighing much of course.

One for my nephew

2010-02-07T13:29:00.002+01:00

So, did you know that if you're sitting on the loo and you're straining too hard to lose a log, you run the risk of rupturing the artieries that bring blood to your brain, causing intense bleeding, exploding eyeballs and finally, er, death?

So don't do it!

The First Factoid

2010-02-06T18:32:00.001+01:00

Welcome to Rrikipedia, which is going to be a (mostly) daily little taste of the mounds of "knowledge" arrayed landscape-like in my brain.

And here's one to get the ball rolling:

During pregnancy, women's hair doesn't fall out. So after they squeeze one out, they lose handfuls of hair and think they've been zapped by aliens. But in fact it's just the hair they would have lost over those nine months, all in one hit. Blame those pesky hormones, girls!

There, don't you feel just a little bit wiser now?