What I learned in 2017 (according to my twitter archive)
Dec 27, 2017
#TodayILearned that Morrissey is a cousin of Robbie Keane
irishmusicdaily.com/blog/oasi…
Dec 21, 2017
#TodayILearned that a-Ha’s Take On Me never got to number one
Shocked, tbh
cheerful.libsyn.com/episode-2…
Dec 18, 2017
#TodayILearned that 40% of the people on the Sgt Peppers cover were chosen by the @thebeatles , and the rest by the artists bbc.co.uk/programme…
Dec 16, 2017
#TodayILearned that referees have to measure the length of the grass on a football pitch @henrywinter
Dec 15, 2017
#TodayILearned that in a Wild West Two-Bit Saloon, all drinks cost two bits
So Clint Eastwood never needed change
Dec 15, 2017
#TodayILearned that Last Christmas is the best-selling record to never have reached Number 11 theguardian.com/music/201…
### Dec 11, 2017
#TodayILearned that @realDonaldTrump has, according to @qikipedia , played more rounds of golf this year than Rory McIlRoy acast.com/thepengui…
Dec 5, 2017
#TodayILearned that cello can be spelt ‘cello.
The apostrophe denotes abbreviation from violoncello which can be tranlated as little, big viol
Or something
Dec 5, 2017
#TodayILearned that Just a Minute originally had a round in which you couldn’t use plurals
Nov 21, 2017
#TodayILearned that the Likely Lads was filmed in Harlesdon bbc.co.uk/programme…
Nov 20, 2017
#TodayILearned that Rikki, who shouldn’t lose Steely Dan’s number, is a real person, and a writer en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_… Via @GregProops
Nov 14, 2017
#TodayILearned that the fingering on a saxophone is the same as on a flute….Should’ve known, really Via @bartoncummings on npr.org/podcasts/…
Nov 6, 2017
#TodayILearned that basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was too tall to get drafted for Vietnam wtfpod.com/podcast/e… (via @marcmaron)
Nov 3, 2017
#TodayILearned that John Peel played the first Eno/Fripp LP backwards
Eno rang the BBC but couldn’t get through
Oct 27, 2017
#TodayILearned Sir Geoff wasn’t sure whether the LAST goal (not the did-it-cross-the-line one) counted theguardian.com/football/…
Oct 4, 2017
#TodayILearned that the Honey Monster was previously in Cliff Richard films bbc.co.uk/programme…
Sep 28, 2017
#TodayILearned that Lonnie Donnegan recorded Rock Island Line in the same month Elvis did That’s Alright Mama npr.org/2017/07/1…
Sep 27, 2017
#TodayILearned that Mrs Thatcher probably didn’t help to invent Mr Whippy ice cream
Sep 25, 2017
#TodayILearned that Woodhenge was originally called Dough Cover.
I have no idea why.
Sep 21, 2017
#TodayILearned that Antonio Conte debuted in Serie A at the age of 16.
I expect he was quite scary even then
Sep 20, 2017
#TodayILearned that Great Britain is 0.54% golf course statsmapsnpix.com/2017/09/b…
Sep 19, 2017
#TodayILearned that Karl Marx DIDN’T want to dedicate Das Kapital to Charles Darwin bbc.co.uk/programme…
Sep 14, 2017
#TodayILearned that the Soup Dragons’ hit I’m Free is a Rolling Stones cover http://audioboom.com/posts/5743145-episode-34-an-edgar-wright-musical-retrospective?utm_campaign=embed&utm_content=retweet&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter via @EdiBow
@SoundTrackingUK
Sep 4, 2017
#TodayILearned that before #DesertIslandDiscs there was show called Marooned with a Gramophone audioboom.com/posts/462… via @DavidLloydRADIO
Aug 29, 2017
#TodayILearned that the Bayeux Tapestry depicts 600 men and 3 women bbc.co.uk/programme…
Aug 23, 2017
#TodayILearned that Dr Seuss is properly pronounced ‘Zoyce’ smartest.libsyn.com/coats
Aug 22, 2017
#TodayILearned that, in the course of 1935, Churchill spent the equivalent of $62,000 on champagne
Respect.
revisionisthistory.com/episodes/…
Aug 22, 2017
#TodayILearned you can make a page auto-refresh by putting this in the html header: http-equiv=“refresh” content=“5”
https://w3schools.com/tags/att_meta_http_equiv.asp
Aug 22, 2017
#TodayILearned that Trigger’s Broom has a classical precursor, the Ship of Theseus
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus
Aug 21, 2017
#TodayILearned that in Ilchester the river Yeo is called the Ivel
Only other alternative river name I know of is the Isis/Thames in Oxford
Aug 9, 2017
#TodayILearned ‘boracic lint’ was a medical dressing which gave rise to the rhyming slang for ‘skint’ en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bora…
Aug 8, 2017
#TodayILearned Falmouth, Jamaica (pop. 7,779) is the birthplace of Luther Blissett, Ben Johnson and Usain Bolt2
Aug 6, 2017
#TodayILearned that the average speed on the M25 is 25 mph, according to this: theguardian.com/commentis…
Aug 4, 2017
#TodayILearned theguardian.com/artanddes…
Aug 2, 2017
#TodayILearned that you can type :prev and :next in vim to move between files.
How I failed to learn this before now remains a mystery
Jul 31, 2017
#TodayILearned who Saint Pancras was
Jul 17, 2017
#TodayILearned that the BBC rejected an essay by Dorothy L Sayers because ‘our public do not want to be admonished by a woman’
Jul 11, 2017
#TodayILearned that ‘stiff upper lip’ is an Americanism.
I say!
Jul 3, 2017
#TodayILearned that Frank Bryce is ‘one of only 5 characters whose thoughts are directly disclosed by the narrator’ newstatesman.com/culture/b…
Jun 8, 2017
#TodayILearned to count the occurences of one string in another:
([regex]::Matches(“Famous CFC”, “C” )).count
Jun 5, 2017
#TodayILearned Bryan Ferry was once a ceramics teacher at Holland Pk Comp
Also learned some schls had ceramics teachers
Via @davidhepworth
Jun 2, 2017
#TodayILearned that King Tubby was actually fairly skinny https://theguardian.com/music/2017/jun/01/readers-recommend-share-your-songs-influenced-by-dub?CMP=share_btn_tw
May 25, 2017
#TodayILearned you can put ‘comments’ in Markdown files like this:
…& it won’t show on the webpage
May 25, 2017
#TodayILearned that Jose Mourinho and his wife Mathilde have two children, called Jose and Mathilde bbc.co.uk/programme…
May 17, 2017
#TodayILearned that soul producer Tom Dowd previously worked on the Manhattan Project wordpodcast.co.uk/2017/02/1… via @WIYElondon / @tonyfletcher
May 5, 2017
#TodayILearned that a German word for ‘lower back tattoo’ translates literally as ‘arse-antlers’ libwww.freelibrary.org/podcast/e… - thx @KoryStamper !
Apr 16, 2017
#TodayILearned that UK artists earn more from vinyl sales than they do from YouTube payments
Mar 30, 2017
#TodayILearned that Roger Corman owned the film title ‘The Fast and The Furious’ wtfpod.com/podcast/e…
Mar 28, 2017
#TodayILearned that only 3.2% of @premierleague corners lead to goals theguardian.com/football/…
Mar 16, 2017
#TodayILearned that, long before AXA, Harold Wilson adopted the phrase ‘little things that mean a lot’ theguardian.com/politics/…
Mar 15, 2017
#TodayILearned that JMW Turner did a nice painting of Saint Martin’s church in Salisbury tate.org.uk/art/artwo…
Mar 10, 2017
#TodayILearned that Wilkie Collins' mother grew up in Alderbury http://wilkie-collins.info/family_harriet_collins.htm
Mar 2, 2017
#TodayILearned that Enoch Powell voted for Attlee rather than Churchill in 1945
Thought WC would appoint appeasers
Feb 26, 2017
#TodayILearned that 1 in 30 pound coins is fake.
I guess this is #FakeNews
### Feb 24, 2017
#TodayILearned that the revolving restaurant at the top of the Post Office Tower was originally run by @Butlins
media.nationalarchives.gov.uk/index.php…
Feb 23, 2017
#TodayILearned that Marjorie Merriweather Post left Mar-a-Lago to the nation to be used as ‘a winter Whitehouse’ theguardian.com/us-news/2…
Feb 22, 2017
#TodayILearned that if your try and configure SSRS 2012 with the 2008 Configurator thing you get ‘Provider Load Failure’
#IdiotDBAOnTheLoose
Feb 22, 2017
#TodayILearned that ‘Born to Do It’ is a Willy Wonka reference. Obviously. bbc.co.uk/programme…
Feb 21, 2017
#TodayILearned that, originally, ‘Dutch Courage’ was, specifically, gin bbc.co.uk/programme…
Feb 17, 2017
#TodayILearned that in the 1730s there was one gin shop for every 11 houses in London.
Gin was the equivalent of today’s cappucino…
To view keyboard shortcuts, press question mark View keyboard shortcuts #TodayILearned (from:salisbury_matt) until:2017-12-31 since:2017-01-01 Top Latest People Media Lists See new posts Search timeline
Mar 10, 2017
#TodayILearned that Wilkie Collins' mother grew up in Alderbury http://wilkie-collins.info/family_harriet_collins.htm
Mar 2, 2017
#TodayILearned that Enoch Powell voted for Attlee rather than Churchill in 1945
Thought WC would appoint appeasers
Feb 26, 2017
#TodayILearned that 1 in 30 pound coins is fake.
I guess this is #FakeNews
Feb 24, 2017
#TodayILearned that the revolving restaurant at the top of the Post Office Tower was originally run by @Butlins
media.nationalarchives.gov.uk/index.php…
Feb 23, 2017
#TodayILearned that Marjorie Merriweather Post left Mar-a-Lago to the nation to be used as ‘a winter Whitehouse’ theguardian.com/us-news/2…
Feb 22, 2017
#TodayILearned that if your try and configure SSRS 2012 with the 2008 Configurator thing you get ‘Provider Load Failure’ #IdiotDBAOnTheLoose
Feb 22, 2017
#TodayILearned that ‘Born to Do It’ is a Willy Wonka reference. Obviously. bbc.co.uk/programme…
Feb 21, 2017
#TodayILearned that, originally, ‘Dutch Courage’ was, specifically, gin bbc.co.uk/programme…
Feb 17, 2017
#TodayILearned that in the 1730s there was one gin shop for every 11 houses in London.
Gin was the equivalent of today’s cappucino…
Feb 16, 2017
#TodayILearned there is a rather interesting-looking company called New Sarum Brewing in Salisbury, North Carolina newsarumbrewing.com
Feb 13, 2017
#TodayILearned a new word - ‘shrinkflation’ theguardian.com/uk-news/2…
Feb 4, 2017
#TodayILearned that there is a Barbie version of a Christmas Carol
Feb 3, 2017
#TodayILearned about the Green Book, which advised on ‘Vacation without Aggravation’ bbc.in/2fNegJd
Jan 28, 2017
#TodayILearned that US soldier Leon Hendrix was put on ‘potato peeling duty’ cos of the way his brother Jimi played the StarSpangled Banner
Jan 23, 2017
#TodayILearned that the Fighting Temeraire saved Nelson’s Victory from capture by the French at Trafalgar bbc.co.uk/programme…
Jan 20, 2017
#TodayILearned that Kings Lynn was previously Bishops Lynn bbc.co.uk/programme…
Jan 17, 2017
#TodayILearned that Michael Stipe was offered the role of the killer in ‘Seven’ wnyc.org/story/mic… via @WNYC
Jan 16, 2017
#TodayILearned that Cary Grant had a dog called Archie Leach bbc.co.uk/programme…
Jan 13, 2017
#TodayILearned that one third of ex-council houses bought under Mrs T’s Right to Buy scheme are now owned by private landlords.
Jan 12, 2017
#TodayILearned that in the UK in 2012 more tickets were sold for professional theatre than for professional football. Via @Davidsgoldblatt
Jan 11, 2017
#TodayILearned that ‘thou’ and ‘you’ in English are rough equivalents of ‘tu’ and ‘vous’ in French.
Never realised. shakespeareswords.com/thou-and-…
Jan 6, 2017
#TodayILearned that the first English Tiger shop was in Basingstoke theguardian.com/business/…
Jan 3, 2017
#TodayILearned that Tolstoy was a veggie openculture.com/2016/12/h…
Jan 2, 2017
#TodayILearned how to do a screenshot on my Windows Phone
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Wham did reach Number 1 with Last Christmas in 2023 ↩︎
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Someone from Falmouth replied to this saying ‘We likkle but we tallawah’, which means small but powerful. Can’t really argue. bbc.co.uk/programme… ↩︎