I finished Trigger Point last week. It’s a cracking show and ‘her off Line of Duty’ is very good.
It was shame the way they used ‘sous les paves le plage’…I quite liked that slogan
I did find it slightly ‘triggering’, but for me it was oddly cathartic, if that’s the word
What I learned in 2018 (according to my twitter archive)
Dec 18, 2018
#TodayILearned that (the) Buzzcocks' song ‘Ever Fallen In Love’ was inspired by a line from Guys and Dolls. And the sleeve was influenced by René Magritte and Marcel Duchamp
Dec 1, 2018
#TodayILearned that Mrs Hudson wasn’t the housekeeper at 221b Baker Street, she was the landlady
(Via @barrycryer80 in the @RadioTimes )
Nov 29, 2018
#TodayILearned that The Bangles minor hit ‘Going Down to Liverpool’ was previously a Katrina and the Waves song
And before that is was recorded when they were just The Waves
Nov 28, 2018
#TodayILearned] why the woodpecker in ‘Bagpuss’ is called Professor Yaffle
Every day is, indeed, and school day
:) Quote Robert Macfarlane @RobGMacfarlane
Nov 28, 2018
Word of the day: “rain-bird” - common name for the green woodpecker (Picus viridis), because it was thought to herald bad weather. Also “yappingale” & “yaffle” (cf Professor Yaffle in Bagpuss) due to its laughing cry. A back-garden jester, in its fool’s cap of feathers…
Nov 22, 2018
#TodayILearned that Richard Osman off of Pointless is a brother of Matt (?) Osman out of Suede
And vice versa From bbc.co.uk
Nov 20, 2018
#TodayILearned that Gerald Ratner made his ‘its total crap’ speech TWENTY SEVEN YEARS AGO
…and afterwards, backstage, he said that he thought it had gone rather well
(via @cbwallop podcast)
Nov 20, 2018
#TodayILearned that N’Golo Kante has covered the most ground in the Premiership this season
Nov 22, 2018
#TodayILearned that Richard Osman off of Pointless is a brother of Matt (?) Osman out of Suede
And vice versa From bbc.co.uk
Nov 20, 2018
#TodayILearned that Gerald Ratner made his ‘its total crap’ speech TWENTY SEVEN YEARS AGO
…and afterwards, backstage, he said that he thought it had gone rather well
(via @cbwallop podcast)
Nov 20, 2018
#TodayILearned that N’Golo Kante has covered the most ground in the Premiership this season
Nov 15, 2018
#TodayILearned that today is the Christmas equivalent of Pancake Day
I think
Nov 15, 2018
#TodayILearned that 70% of players in Premier League academies are born in the first six months of the school year, compared to 30% in the last six months.
(Via @timwig )
#ICouldHaveBeenAContender
Nov 5, 2018
#TodayILearned there was a man on the Carpathia, the ship that picked up the Titanic survivors, who had nieces on the Titanic
The first he knew of the disaster was when his nieces knocked on the door of his cabin the following morning
Via @abcconvos
Oct 15, 2018
#TodayILearned that @StephenKing has sold an estimated 350 million books.
Which would mean that I’ve bought an estimated 0.00001% of them
Oct 9, 2018
#TodayILearned that when Gene Kelly danced the famous Singin' In The Rain scene he had a heavy cold and a temperature of 103
Oct 5, 2018
#TodayILearned that Captain Cook’s Endeavour was renamed the ‘Lord Sandwich’ (via @HistoryExtra and @petermoore )
Sep 27, 2018
#TodayILearned that graffiti-ist Banksy stuck this fake cave art up in the @britishmuseum
Sep 24, 2018
#TodayILearned that “Business Insider estimated that $1,666 was spent in marketing and advertising for every Windows Phone that was subsequently sold — for just $100, before that was slashed to $50.”
Pity - I liked the Windows Phone! computerworld.com/article/3… via @computerworld
Sep 10, 2018
#TodayILearned that the Proportional Representation referendum of 2011 was a ‘statutory referendum’ i.e a ‘Yes’ vote would have been legally binding
Sep 5, 2018
#TodayILearned that the carriage that Dorothy rides in in the Wizard of Oz was also used by Abraham Lincoln
I heard that on the radio in the night, so this may actually have been a particularly odd dream
Aug 31, 2018
#TodayILearned that Ian Paisley lived on Cyprus Avenue
Aug 20, 2018
#TodayILearned that Suzi Quatro’s real name was Quattrocchi.
The name was shortened by the immigration people en.m.wikipedia.org Suzi Quatro - Wikipedia
Aug 1, 2018
#TodayILearned that, at Sansovino, Sarri “was nicknamed Mr 33 because that was the number of set-piece routines he expected his players to memorise”
#cfc #utc #ktbffh https://theguardian.com/football/2018/aug/01/premier-league-preview-2018-19-chelsea?CMP=share_btn_tw
Jul 31, 2018
#TodayILearned that ‘COBRA’ (as in the government emergency committee) stands for ‘Cabinet Office Briefing Room A’
I guess it’s handy that it sounds a bit ‘James Bond’
(via @shippersunbound book about about Theresa May etc)
harpercollins.co.uk/978000826…
Jul 23, 2018
[#TodayILearned](https://mattypenny.micro.blog/categories/todayilearned[#TodayILearned](https://mattypenny.micro.blog/categories/todayilearned) that for every 100 calories of animal feed you give to an animal you get back 12 calories of animal meat
Jul 20, 2018
#TodayILearned that the pattern of the carpets in Andover Wetherspoons is inspired by the crop circles that proliferate around here
Jul 19, 2018
#TodayILearned that, in the original pitch, Friends was titled ‘The Insomnia Cafe’
Jul 18, 2018
#TodayILearned that Lennie Godber’s first TV role was arresting Ena Sharples
This tweet will only make sense to English people ‘of a certain age’
Jul 17, 2018
#TodayILearned that 97% of the food and drink that we import is from the EU
Jul 13, 2018
#TodayILearned that there are people who are experts in airport runway rubber removal Quote John Glen MP @JohnGlenUK
Jul 13, 2018
Visited Jetting Systems in Downton, experts in airport runway rubber removal. Great to see a local SME exporting innovative products around the world. We talked about how our banking system can better support SME exporters, and I will be taking some ideas back to @hmtreasury
Jul 12, 2018
#TodayILearned that the 2022 #WorldCup runs from 21 November – 18 December https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_FIFA_World_Cup
Jul 8, 2018
#TodayILearned that Fray Bentos is a place in Uruguay
Jun 29, 2018
#TodayILearned that the hitnDancing in the Moonlight was a cover youtu.be/sR47TZdJg…
Jun 20, 2018
#TodayILearned that the Bonzo Dog Doodah Band played their first gigs in what used to be my local Wetherspoons in Forest Hill
Can’t entirely imagine it, to be honest (via @WIYElondon
wordpodcast.co.uk/2018/05/0… )
Jun 20, 2018
#TodayILearned that the Bonzo Dog Doodah Band played their first gigs in what used to be my local Wetherspoons in Forest Hill
Can’t entirely imagine it, to be honest (via @WIYElondon
wordpodcast.co.uk/2018/05/0… )
Jun 14, 2018
#TodayILearned that the @poguesofficial considered calling themselves ‘The Men They Couldn’t Hang’ (via @rocksbackpages (£) rocksbackpages.com/Library/A…)
Jun 13, 2018
#TodayILearned that a bloke called Dan Scavino helps the @realDonaldTrump with his tweets n.pr/2HcxV79
Jun 3, 2018
#TodayILearned that Love, Actually was originally going to be set around Saint Valentines Day, rather than Christmas
May 29, 2018
#TodayILearned that the last prosecution under the Witchcraft Act in the UK was in 1944
(via @littleatoms )
May 28, 2018
#TodayILearned @WalkTheLinesLDN Happy 50th to Kylie Minogue, whose first name is the Aboriginal word for ‘boomerang’.
May 28, 2018
#TodayILearned that ‘Scooby’ is short for ‘Scoobert’
May 18, 2018
#TodayILearned that the Wheatsheaf does ‘thrice-cooked chips’
The Mucklowes would surely approve
May 16, 2018
#TodayILearned that the French for ‘extra time’ is ‘prolongation’
May 8, 2018
#TodayILearned that, in the late 1990s, Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik stood down temporarily while he was suffering from depression bbc.co.uk/programme…
Apr 30, 2018
#TodayILearned that the JD in JD Wetherspoons is a reference to J.D. ‘Boss’ Hogg from the Dukes of Hazzard bbc.co.uk/programme…
Apr 16, 2018
#TodayILearned that ‘pigsfoot’ was a codeword for ‘freedom’ among American slaves
Apr 11, 2018
#TodayILearned that poor old Good King Wenceslaus got stabbed to death by his brother
May 16, 2018
#TodayILearned that the French for ‘extra time’ is ‘prolongation’ Quote L’ÉQUIPE @lequipe
May 16, 2018
Replying to @lequipe Votre pronostic pour cette finale de la Ligue Europa à l’issue du temps réglementaire ? #UELfinal #OMAtleti #OMATM Show this poll
May 8, 2018
#TodayILearned that, in the late 1990s, Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik stood down temporarily while he was suffering from depression bbc.co.uk/programme…
Apr 30, 2018
#TodayILearned that the JD in JD Wetherspoons is a reference to J.D. ‘Boss’ Hogg from the Dukes of Hazzard bbc.co.uk/programme…
Apr 16, 2018
#TodayILearned that ‘pigsfoot’ was a codeword for ‘freedom’ among American slaves
Apr 11, 2018
#TodayILearned that poor old Good King Wenceslaus got stabbed to death by his brother
Apr 6, 2018
#TodayILearned that ‘buffet’ was originally ‘beaufet’
en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/beau…
Mar 29, 2018
#TodayILearned that the story about @rockyoriordan going into a record shop to buy the Nips record and meeting Shane Macgowan isn’t true.
Shame
Via @joerooney1
Mar 27, 2018
#TodayILearned that the @PwC_UK bloke running Carillion in administration ‘paid himself £865 an hour – nearly 116 times the £7.50 minimum wage of some cleaners’
Mar 13, 2018
#TodayILearned that the first two British managers to win the European Cup, Jock Stein and Matt Busby, played for different teams in a 5-a-side tournament in Burnback, South Lanarkshire
Mar 12, 2018
#TodayILearned that ‘Null’ is a surname, meaning Ulsterman (or Ulsterwoman, presumably) - via @Phil_Factor
sqlservercentral.com/articles/…
Mar 8, 2018
#TodayILearned that the Prawn Mayonnaise has been Marks and Spencer’s best selling sandwich for 36 years
Feb 16, 2018
#TodayILearned the word ‘Scowegian’ - slang for Scandinavian oxfordindex.oup.com/view/10.1…
Feb 13, 2018
#TodayILearned that ‘rabbit’ is rhyming slang. ‘Rabbit and pork’ rhyming with ‘talk’.
Kind of.
Feb 7, 2018
#TodayILearned that @veeam backs up @SQLServer transaction logs to c:\ProgramData\Veeam\Backup\SqlLogBackup on the target VM, before shipping them off to the veeam repo
Dunno if you can specify a different folder
### Jan 30, 2018
#TodayILearned(https://mattypenny.micro.blog/categories/todayilearned/) that the ‘She’ who sold sea-shells on the sea-shore was fossil hunter Mary Anning of Lyme Regis bbc.co.uk/programme…
Jan 19, 2018
#TodayILearned that Isaac Newton lost the equivalent of 3 million dollars in the South Sea Bubble
Proving that what goes up can sometimes come down, I guess
openculture.com/2018/01/h… via @openculture
Jan 17, 2018
#TodayILearned that @NaomiAKlein ’s grandad was one of the Disney cartoonists who went on strike and got blacklisted bbc.co.uk/programme…
Jan 16, 2018
Replying to
#TodayILearned that Lilliput was possibly named after Lilliput House, which was possibly owned by Isaac Gulliver en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lill…
Jan 16, 2018
#TodayILearned that Tony Blackburn comes from Lilliput, near Sandbanks
Jan 12, 2018
#TodayILearned that a ‘proposition man’ is a guy who offer bets on random stuff, like the number of watermelons in a lorry
(via @bigdaddybunce on The Unridden Realm - Bunces Tales of the Extraordinary)
Jan 7, 2018
Replying to
#TodayILearned cinema projectionists were once called ‘lanternists’
…which reminds me a bit of ‘turntablist’ as a word for ‘DJ’
Jan 5, 2018
#TodayILearned that Loudon Wainwright III wanted to call his 3rd LP ‘Loudon Wainwright the 3rd’s 3rd 33 and a 3rd’
Fresh Air for Nov. 24, 2017: Loudon Wainwright III : NPR
Jan 4, 2018
#TodayILearned that ‘The Shining’ was originally going to be set in a theme park
Stephen King, Author Of ‘Joyland’: On Growing Up, Believing In God And Getting Scared : NPR
#TodayILearned that for #Powershell’s Get-ADUser, using -identity will return an error:
$ $ErrorActionPreference = 'Stop'
$ try {Get-AdUser -identity phineas.fogg} catch {"In catch"}
In catch
….whereas using -filter won’t
$ try {Get-AdUser -filter {samaccountname -eq 'phineas.fogg'}} catch {"In catch"}
$
Listened to this discussion of Juan Peron. Interesting stuff
EP67: Juan Perón The Hated and the Dead
My slightly late-in-the-day New Year’s Resolution is to use #Powershell’s Out-GridView more often and Format-Table less often
Listened to this 🎙️
Made me realise how little i know about Irish history
Although tbf i dont know much about England in the eighteenth century either
The Irish Rebellion of 1798 - In Our Time
Saw this in the paper the other day.
I think its a bit misleading in that whereas Jose, for example, inherited a great team, Poch has come in after a bit of a shambles season, on the back of the government doing their best to dismantle the club, which itself came after an 18 month transfer ban ⚽
“No” is no to one thing. “Yes” is no to a lot of things.
I’m not big on self-help-y type stuff, or the associated slogans, but I liked this:
“No” is no to one thing. “Yes” is no to a lot of things.
Also enjoyed finding out that:
Mankind constantly analyzes radio waves from outer space in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Since this analysis started, almost all of the signal sources have been identified. 37 signals, however, remain unexplained.
I love Irish folk music but I can’t get on with Lankum or John Francis Flynn or any of those. I wish I could
I must be turning into an old git
I love the idea of Steve Wright travelling to New York, and just sitting in a hotel room for a week listening to local radio, picking up ideas🎙️
Not a bad holiday, tbf
What I Learned in 2019 (according to my Twitter archive)
Nov 25, 2019
#TodayILearned that Tony Fitzgerald adopted the name ‘Christie’ after seeing a film starring Julie Christie
BBC Radio WM - The Other Side Of…, Tony Christie
Nov 15, 2019
#TodayILearned that Henry Penruddock Wyndham, who owned Wyndham House and Park in Salisbury in the late 1700s was a direct descendant of both John Penruddock and Sir John Wyndham1
Nov 15, 2019
#TodayILearned that Harvard went fully co-educational in 1977, and Columbia did the same in 1983
Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism Archives - The Podcast Browser
Nov 13, 2019
#TodayILearned that Caecilius was not only pater, but he was also in Doctor Who before he was Doctor Who
Or Something2
<img src=“https://cdn.uploads.micro.blog/139254/2024/ejpfxndwwaankp7.png" width=“582” height=“356” alt=“Screen print, with a couple of pictures, and the text ‘Caecilius, along with his banking profession, also has a minor role in Robert Harris’s 2003 novel Pompeii.
A 2008 episode of Doctor Who, entitled The Fires of Pompeii, portrays Caecilius, played by Peter Capaldi, as a marble merchant. Tracey Childs plays his wife Metella and Francois Pandolfo plays his son Quintus. In this story, he and his family are saved from the eruption by the main character who transports them to safety. Caecilius coins the word volcano on witnessing the eruption.'">
Nov 11, 2019
#TodayILearned, I think, why the @PSPester TDD tool’s symbol looks like a turtle (via @unclebobmartin)3
Nov 4, 2019
#TodayILearned that the ‘were’ in ‘If I were a rich man’ is in the subjunctive tense[^2] [^2:] it’s actually the subjunctive ‘mood’ not the subjunctive tense
Nov 4, 2019
#TodayILearned that the word iridescent comes from Iris, the Greek goddess of rainbows
Oct 29, 2019
#TodayILearned that Miriam Margolyes did the voice of the Cadbury’s Caramel bunny
Oct 28, 2019
#TodayILearned that the British newspapers are the least trusted of 33 European countries’ newspapers
(Via an old-ish podcast conversation between @JohnBishop100 and @JohnCleese)
Survey finds that UK written press is (by some way) the least trusted in Europe - Press Gazette
Oct 22, 2019
#TodayILearned that until the 1880s a mountain range called the Mountains of Kong appeared on maps of Africa.
The mountains didn’t exist
Edward I And Maps Through History History Extra podcast
Oct 21, 2019
#TodayILearned that “The Australian Psychological Society?s congress heard a study of 261 senior professionals in the US, which found 21% had clinically significant levels of psychopathic traits compared to one in 100 in the general population.”
Oct 18, 2019
#TodayILearned that King Louis of France invaded England in 1215. French invaders and rebel Barons held London for over a year
King John & The French Invasion Of England | HistoryExtra
Oct 9, 2019
#TodayILearned that @Gohugo has a nice footnote feature:
Some text[^1]
[^1]Some reference for some text
blah blah
Oct 9, 2019
#TodayILearned that @yokoono not only bought ‘Mendips’ (John Lennon’s childhood home) to give to the @nationaltrust , she also paid for its renovation
Step Inside Paul McCartney’s And John Lennon’s Childhood Homes Beatles City podcast
Oct 4, 2019
#TodayILearned that Parkrun has been going for 15 years
Parkrun at 15: bigger, more global ??? and slower than ever | Running | The Guardian
Oct 3, 2019
#TodayILearned which football team Margaret Thatcher supported.
I always much preferred John Major…
Who Dares Wins: Britain, 1979-1982 by Dominic Sandbrook ? review | History books | The Guardian
Aug 29, 2019
#TodayILearned that EMI had their famous staircase taken apart and reconstructed when they moved from Manchester Square to Hammersmith (Via @Eamonn_Forde on @WIYElondon)
Aug 29, 2019
#TodayILearned that Lena Zavaroni was signed to Stax Records (Via an old @WIYElondon podcast)
Aug 17, 2019
#TodayILearned I learned that drop-balls have gone the way the way of the dodo
Aug 15, 2019
#TodayILearned that you can get useful @Veeam error information from the eventlog, as well as from the application
Get-WinEvent -ComputerName VeeamServer -FilterHashtable @{Logname='Veeam Backup';ID=190} | ? message -like "*VeeamJobName*" | select timecreated, message | fl
Aug 9, 2019
#TodayILearned that ‘etymology’ is derived from ‘etymon’ meaning ‘true meaning’
It is itself an example of ‘the etymological fallacy’ - that the historical derivation of a word necessarily helps understand what it now means
I think
Via @D_Shariatmadari
How we can learn to stop worrying and love language ??? books podcast | Books | The Guardian
Aug 1, 2019
#TodayILearned that Don Maclean (the Crackerjack bloke) is a Knight of the Pontifical Equestrian Order of Pope St Sylvester (a Papal Kinght).
BBC Radio WM - The Other Side Of…, Don Maclean
Jul 30, 2019
#TodayILearned that Gavin Williamson is only “the second education secretary to have attended a comprehensive school”
Jul 26, 2019
#TodayILearned that “estimates say that up to 8 percent of males (and .5 percent of females) have issues seeing some colors”
https://adamtheautomator.com/dont-forget-that-some-people-cant-see-colors/
Jul 21, 2019
#TodayILearned that what used to be called ‘synchronised swimming’ is now called ‘artistic swimming’
Comic-Con and climate protest: Friday’s best photos | News | The Guardian
Jul 16, 2019
#TodayILearned that, when he was in advertising, Salman Rushdie coined the slogan ‘Naughty but nice’ for cream cakes
BBC Radio 4 - Desert Island Discs, Salman Rushdie
Jul 4, 2019
#TodayILearned that they are ‘whinberries’ not ‘windberries’ - via @RobGMacfarlane
Jun 9, 2019
#TodayILearned that….
“If [a drink has] got alcohol in it, then there?s no need to have the nutritional information on there. Therefore while there has to be clear information on soft drinks, there doesn?t on alcoholic drinks”
I’ve been honest about alcohol. But the drinks industry hasn’t | Adrian Chiles | The Guardian
Jun 8, 2019
#TodayILearned that the Harvards of Harvard University, and who indirectly gave their name to the old Harvard Hospital in Salisbury, used to have a pub in Southwark
Jun 3, 2019
#TodayILearned the @brexitparty_uk got less votes than the Revoke Article 50 petition got signatures
May 29, 2019
#TodayILearned that the burglar Jack Shepherd was the original ‘Jack the Lad’
May 29, 2019
#TodayILearned that the burglar Jack Shepherd was the original ‘Jack the Lad’
Author Claire Harman on a Victorian murder scandal | History Extra Podcast | HistoryExtra
May 25, 2019
#TodayILearned that one of my very favourite footballers, Gus Poyet, was playing for @RealZaragoza on the night they beat the Arsenal in the Cup Winners' Cup Final
Apr 23, 2019
#TodayILearned that Pete Best first saw the then drummerless Beatles in the Casbah Club, which his mother ran in the basement of her house
https://play.acast.com/s/beatlescity/3-petebest-partone-
Apr 21, 2019
#TodayILearned that of players to score at least 25 Premier League goals, John Terry has scored the largest proportion of them with his head
Captain, Leader, Header of The Ball
#cfc #ktbffh
Wolves 0-0 Brighton, West Ham 2-2 Leicester and more – as it happened | Football | The Guardian
Apr 17, 2019
#TodayILearned that Lord Nelson and the Duke of Wellington met only once, at 12 Downing Street (Via @dobbs_michael House of Cards)
Apr 10, 2019
#TodayILearned that John Lennon visited the set of Happy Days and met the Fonz
Via the @LivEchonews Beatles City podcast
https://play.acast.com/s/beatlescity/insidethecavernclub
Apr 4, 2019
#TodayILearned that the Beatles had 23 drummers.
But not at the same time
Lots of fascinating stuff about Ringo and the rest from @Liddypooldave talking with @LivEchonews
David Bedford Beatles City podcast
Mar 26, 2019
#TodayILearned that the fingerprints of koala bears are ‘virtually indistinguishable’ from those of humans
BBC Radio 4 - A Point of View, The Online Password
Mar 25, 2019
#TodayILearned that ‘Boris’ is one of his middle names
Mar 25, 2019
#TodayILearned that the power of the Queen in the game of chess was inspired by the power of Isabella I of Castile, possibly
Via @whjm and @HistoryExtra - https://historyextra.com/period/modern/world-changing-women-jenni-murray-interview-womans-hour-radio-four/
Mar 22, 2019
#TodayILearned that in 2017, British households spent around ?900 more, on average, than they earned
Mar 19, 2019
#TodayILearned that ?amon de Valera, future Taoiseach and President of Ireland, escaped from Lincoln Jail with a key that had been baked into a cake. The one key unlocked all the prison’s doors
Mar 19, 2019
_#TodayILearned that Jim Fitzpatrick, who created the famous Cheryl Guevara poster, also did album covers for Thin Lizzy
The History Show Sunday 3 February 2019 - The History Show
Mar 15, 2019
#TodayILearned that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe dressed up as Mario for the closing ceremony of the Rio Olympics
Not sure what Mrs May would have to dress up as for a British equivalent
The story of modern Japan | HistoryExtra
Mar 12, 2019
#TodayILearned that the collective noun for Great Bustards is a ‘drove’
Mar 11, 2019
I always thought that the Privy Council was quite small, but #TodayILearned that it has, by my calculations 682 members - bigger than the House of Commons
https://privycouncil.independent.gov.uk/privy-council/privy-council-members/privy-counsellors/
Mar 8, 2019
#TodayILearned that the full name of Bev Bevan, drummer of ELO and the Move, is Beverly Bevan
BBC Radio WM - The Other Side Of…, Bev Bevan
Mar 8, 2019
#TodayILearned that the most successful British girl band who played instruments was We’ve Got a Fuzzbox and We’re Going to Use It
They were fab
Mar 8, 2019
#TodayILearned that Barack Obama has nearly twice as many Twitter followers as the current President
Mar 1, 2019
#TodayILearned that when Paul Merton started doing Have I Got News for You, the Prime Minister was Mrs Thatcher
#HIGNFY
Feb 26, 2019
#TodayILearned that Cat Stevens originally recorded Wild World (one of my faves) with a reggae band as a demo for Jimmy Cliff (via the wonderful @sodajerker)
https://sodajerker.com/episode-106-yusuf-cat-stevens/
Feb 21, 2019
#TodayILearned that the Beatles had to get permissions to use each of the pictures on the cover of Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band
The only person to refuse was one of a comedy act called the Bowery Boys
Feb 19, 2019
#TodayILearned that James Bond supremo Cubby Broccoli wanted to have Live and Let Die re-recorded by Shirley Bassey, instead of Paul McCartney Via @WIYElondon
Feb 18, 2019
#TodayILearned that Richard Blackwood is Junior (Giscombe?)s nephew
Not quite sure why I find this so interesting tbh
BBC Radio 4 - Inheritance Tracks, Richard Blackwood
Feb 15, 2019
#TodayILearned that the UK was still making compensation payments to former slave owners, or presumably their descendants, until 2015 Via @akalamusic on https://bbc.co.uk/programmes/p067g765
Feb 14, 2019
#TodayILearned that Robbie Williams' dad won Opportunity Knocks in 1974
BBC Radio 5 Live - Headliners, Robbie Williams
Feb 8, 2019
#TodayILearned via Mastermind that John Cheyne, the giant ghost in @CorneliaFunke ’s Ghost Knight (who’s buried in @SalisburyCath), was killed at the Battle of Bosworth by Richard III en.m.wikipedia.org John Cheyne, Baron Cheyne - Wikipedia
Jan 28, 2019
#TodayILearned that Winston Churchill, who was then Home Secretary, had to answer questions in parliament about Dr Crippen’s initial escape from justice (via @shedunnitshow)
Jan 21, 2019
#TodayILearned that when they were both working in the Screen Actors Guild, Ronald Reagan and Olivia De Havilland both suspected each other of being secret Communists https://nytimes.com/2018/11/09/books/review/podcast-frederick-douglass-david-blight-ronald-reagan-bob-spitz.html
Jan 14, 2019
#TodayILearned that Lee Child’s granddad sold the house on Cyprus Avenue in Belfast to Van Morrisson’s dad
https://abc.net.au/radio/programs/conversations/lee-child-2018/10551066
Jan 7, 2019
#TodayILearned that the first of Ireland’s divorce referendums was lost (or won) by the equivalent of one vote in each ballot box Via @PaulineMcLynn1 on https://player.fm/series/standard-issue-podcast/sim-ep-160-chops-58-mother-courage-father-ted-needy-cats-arse-tattoos-pauline-mclynn
Jan 4, 2019
#TodayILearned that Public Enemy’s ‘Fight the Power’ was partly inspired by a song by the Isley Brothers
‘Fight The Power’: A Tale Of 2 Anthems (With The Same Name) : NPR
-
One of the Wyndhams was the judge in the case of the Penruddock who led the Penruddock uprising, and passed a sentence of detah ↩︎
-
Caecilius featured in a series of schools' Latin textbooks, and also it seems in Doctor Who. In the Doctor Who he was played by the actor who went on to play Doctor Who himself. One of the textbooks featured the line ‘Caecilius est pater’…which is about all the Latin I can remember. ↩︎
-
Pester, along with many testing frameworks, uses a technique called ‘mocking’. It’s basically replacing a ‘real’ computer command with a ‘pretend’, or ‘mocked-up’ version of the command. The link with the turtle symbol is the ‘Mock Turtle’ from Alice in Wonderland :) ↩︎
Watched Assault on Precinct 13
Quite enjoyed it.
The soundtrack sounds a bit Kraftwerk-y which seems weird with the dated, 70s look of the film…then I remembered that Kraftwerk were, essentially, a 70s band 📺🎵📽️
Roll on Christmas!
Gavin & Stacey to return for Christmas special after five years
I had access to Github Copilot over the weekend.
I’ll type up some thoughts about it later….but in the meantime, I can say that it’s very, very odd not having it today
Another injury at Chelsea.☹️
I dread to think what the injury list would have been like if we’d been in Europe, too
I reckon I could’ve ended up getting a game ⚽
I don’t want any DDOS attacks, but I did like the idea of a toothbrush-based botnet
”Near as I can tell, a German reporter talking to someone at Fortinet got it wrong, and then everyone else ran with it without reading the German text. It was a hypothetical, which Fortinet eventually confirmed."
Do remember to keep your toothbrushes updated
Millions of hacked toothbrushes used in Swiss cyber attack | The Independent 🦷
Charles Dickens on my hometown
On the occasion of his 212th birthday, this is from Martin Chuzzlewit
Mr Pinch had a shrewd notion that Salisbury was a very desperate sort of place; an exceeding wild and dissipated city; and when he had put up the horse, and given the hostler to understand that he would look in again in the course of an hour or two to see him take his corn, he set forth on a stroll about the streets with a vague and not unpleasant idea that they teemed with all kinds of mystery and bedevilment.
To one of his quiet habits this little delusion was greatly assisted by the circumstance of its being market-day, and the thoroughfares about the market-place being filled with carts, horses, donkeys, baskets, waggons, garden-stuff, meat, tripe, pies, poultry and huckster’s wares of every opposite description and possible variety of character.
Then there were young farmers and old farmers with smock-frocks, brown great-coats, drab great-coats, red worsted comforters, leather-leggings, wonderful shaped hats, hunting-whips, and rough sticks, standing about in groups, or talking noisily together on the tavern steps, or paying and receiving huge amounts of greasy wealth, with the assistance of such bulky pocket-books that when they were in their pockets it was apoplexy to get them out, and when they were out it was spasms to get them in again.
Also there were farmers’ wives in beaver bonnets and red cloaks, riding shaggy horses purged of all earthly passions, who went soberly into all manner of places without desiring to know why, and who, if required, would have stood stock still in a china shop, with a complete dinner-service at each hoof.
Also a great many dogs, who were strongly interested in the state of the market and the bargains of their masters; and a great confusion of tongues, both brute and human
📖
it’s one of those mornings when I’m doubting the wisdom of a 50-something continuing to play football with a lot of 20-somethings ⚽
i love this. Noddy Holder says he had more number one singles than yhe rest of the chaps in Slade because he was singing along at the side of the Coventry Locarno stage when Chuck Berry recorded My Ding a Ling
Function to return markdown link for a URL
This function accepts a URL and returns a markdown link for the URL:
function Get-MarkdownLinkForUrl {
<#
.SYNOPSIS
Get the webpage, extract the title, and build a markdown link for the specified URL
#>
[CmdletBinding()]
[OutputType([String])]
param (
[Parameter(Mandatory=$True)][string]$Url
)
$DebugPreference = $PSCmdlet.GetVariableValue('DebugPreference')
$Webpage = invoke-webrequest $Url
$Webpage.Content -match "<title>(?<title>.*)</title>" | out-null
$Title = $matches['Title']
"[$Title]($Url)"
}
set-alias gmd Get-MarkdownLinkForUrl
It’s run as follows:
Get-MarkdownLinkForUrl https://www.theguardian.com/football/2012/may/19/bayern-munich-chelsea-champions-league-final
…which returns:
[Chelsea win Champions League on penalties over Bayern Munich | Champions League 2011-12 | The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/football/2012/may/19/bayern-munich-chelsea-champions-league-final)
which when rendered looks like this:
“I look at it and think what an awful job I did retouching the horizon. It looks like I did it with a toothbrush”
Sleeve designer Kosh on the cover of Who’s Next 📷🎵🎙️💬🪥
Word in your Attic podcast - youtu.be/_RJFYi2ZU…
#TodayILearned that there’s a Coney Island in County Down, in the North of Ireland as well as the Coney Island near New York
(I gave up geography when I was 13 and I don’t really travel…so most of my knowledge of the outside world comes from rock and roll and football)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coney_Island_(Van_Morrison_song)
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
-
Wham did reach Number 1 with Last Christmas in 2023 ↩︎
-
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… ↩︎