TodayILearned
#TodayILearned that this postcard sold more copies than any other
via Paul Sinha - Paul Sinha’s Perfect Pub Quiz Series 3 South London - home to Stanleys and Georges and two of the Magnificent Seven
#TodayILearned that
While humans are split between right-handers and left-handers, elephants have a preference for which side of their trunk they use. Wrinkles reveal whether elephants are left- or right-trunked, study finds
#TodayILearned, from watching the TV quiz The Chase, that “Originally, rhinestones were rock crystals gathered from the river Rhine”….that had never occured to me before
Peter Butterworth and the Wooden Horse
#TodayILearned that Carry On actor Peter Butterworth auditioned for a part in the 1949 film ‘The Wooden Horse’, which was about an actual wartime escape from Stalag Luft III
The wooden horse was a vaulting horse which concealed the entrance to a tunnel
Butterworth was rejected because he “didn’t look convincingly heroic or athletic enough”….despite being one of the actual vaulters in the actual prison camp a few years earlier
Via Otto English’s ‘Fake Heroes’
More here: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete…
#TodayILearned that the chant
We know what we are We know what we are Champions of Europe We know what we are
….is Shakespearean, almost
we know what we are but know not what we may be. Hamlet, Act 4, Scene 5
#TodayILearned that
“The word “Bronx” originated with Swedish-born (or Faroese-born) Jonas Bronck, who established the first European settlement in the area as part of the New Netherland colony in 1639.”
#TodayILearned that tomatos were thought very poisonous in North America until a chap called Colonel Johnson publicly ate one in 1820
You are there - Colonel Johnson eats a love apple youtu.be/n7_rdLNB6…
This has been one of my favourite reggae songs over the last couple of years
#TodayILearned, via Record Collector magazine, that ‘Niney’ was given that name as a nickname because he lost his thumb in an an accident
Blood and Fire by Niney The Observer songwhip.com/nineytheo…
Room 101 was a meeting room
#TodayILearned, via mastodonapp.uk/@Probertd… that
“The original Room 101 was not in Broadcasting House as the BBC maintains but in 55 Portland Place.
It was where the Eastern Service held Committee meetings some of which Orwell attended, until the Indian Services office moved to 200 Oxford Street.
The point so far as Orwell was concerned was not death by impalement or drowning or the other deathly delights he mentions but attendance at meetings which, though beloved by bureaucrats, to Orwell and anyone else engaged in creative pursuits was a fate worse than death. For evidence and further details see A Life in Letters, p. 197”
Orwell at the BBC: Two Wasted Years? - orwellsociety.com/orwell-at…
#TodayILearned that ‘scarper’ is rhyming slang, derived from Scapa Flow, rhyming with ‘go’….at least according to the attached
Scapa Flow was naval base - it’s probably best known for the scuttling of the German fleet at the end of World War One
“Drummers are like hockey goalies. No-one knows how to talk to them apart from other drummers”
#TodayILearned how much of a drummer Karen Carpenter was
Word In Your Ear Is Karen Carpenter pop music’s saddest story?
#TodayILearned the phrase ‘gish gallop’. It’s means to create a deluge of rubbish in argument, to overwhelm your opponent
Mehdi Hasan | Win Every Argument: The Art of Debating, Persuading, and Public Speaking
#TodayILearned that Richard Whittington really was apprenticed to someone called Sir Ivo FitzWaryn and married his daughter Alice
(For the benefit of people who aren’t the UK and/or aren’t pantomime nerds, Dick Whittington is one of the three or four main pantomime stories. It’s based on a 14th Century Mayor of London…but I didn’t realize the FitzWarrens also really existed)
#TodayILearned that the TV audience that is most disproportionately Labour voting is Taskmaster, followed by Rupaul’s Drag Race, and Big Brother
Somewhat frustratingly, Mr Osman doesn’t exactly tell us which shows are the most disproportionately Conservative, Liberal, Green or SNP……but the show which is directly in proportion to national voting intention is Question Time
#OnThisDay in 1930, which was Good Friday, the BBC News Announcer announced, in the evening bulletin, that ‘There is no news’ and then played some music instead
#TodayILearned that Chris Spedding, who produced the Cramps, and possibly the Sex Pistols, and had a hit with MotorBikin' was also one of the Wombles
Underground, Overground - Mike Batt on Word in your Ear - youtu.be/5JUqyAp7H…
Chris Spedding - Wikipedia - en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chri…
Remember You’re A Womble by The Wombles - songwhip.com/thewomble…
It’s clearly not the main point of my friend Tom’s podcast, but #TodayILearned that ‘Kosovo’ is derived from ‘Kosovo Polje’ which means ‘the field of blackbirds’….which I quite like
The Hated and the Dead podcast: Kosovo Serbs - podtail.com/en/podcas…
#TodayILearned that the first known use of the word ‘celebrity’ was by Geoffrey Chaucer, translating someone I didn’t catch the name of 🎙️
This isn’t perfect, in that it doesn’t cope with the ‘nd’ in ‘2nd’, bit it’s good enough
A vim mapping to insert the day and date as a header for notes, journals etc
map <Leader>m :put =strftime('%A %dth %B %Y')<cr>:s/ 0/ /<cr>kJi## <Esc>
#TodayILearned that to comment out the currently selected text in VS Code you can do Ctrl + /