Odd (and I mean odd!) Facts

There are as many molecules in a teaspoon of water as here are teaspoons of water in the Atlantic Ocean. Like Wow!

The first Artichoke Queen of Castroville, California, was crowned in 1947. She was Marilyn Monroe!

Paris was the first city to adopt house numbers. it did so in 1463.

One of those daft laws often quoted is that it is illegal to chain an alligator to a fire hydrant in Michigan. In fact, alligators don't get a mention. The law simply makes it illegal to chain anything to a fire hydrant.

When British athlete Rebecca Romero followed up her Olympic silver in rowing from 2004 with a gold in cycling in 2008 there was, quite rightly, much acclaim for her abilities. But a hundred years earlier Lottie Dodd took silver in Olympic archery after winning the English Ladies Golf Championship in 1904 and Wimbledon when she was only 15.

In 1966 the Free Tramps Federation met in Argentina and among its proposals was a bank holiday on May 2nd to follow Labour Day on May 1st. The title of the proposed holiday - The International Day of Idleness. I could live with that!

In 2004 a so-called tenth planet called Sedna was discovered. Sedna - named after the Inuit goddess of the ocean - is about 13 bilion km away. Astronomers now say they have evidence that Sedna has its own moon and is also very red in colour. There has been plenty of debate about whether it qualifies as a true planet, but some scientists have said it re-defines our Solar System.
 

Blogging

My Brother asked me how I managed to do all the blogging I do – what with this Google Blog, my StumbleUpon and my Pensby Natural History Blog .
I replied that it is my way of keeping sane in an insane world. Or if the world is sane it is my way of keeping insane. Whichever, it keeps me content with life when there is little else to do so.
On a more practical level I do it by keeping a notepad of the odd things I come across during my computing or reading and then, when I go on to check my emails and things, I turn some of the notepad ideas into little snippets for the blogs. You can probably tell how well I’m feeling (I suffer from various long-term illnesses I won’t bore you with) by whether I miss a day or simply insert a few bits of useless information.
I have had my notepad for years and called it “Factoids” thinking I had invented quite a good word. However, I heard the word used on television the other day and realised that I hadn’t invented it – or, if I had, it was co-incidentally created by someone else as well. I decided to look it up on Google and it has two meanings -
- a brief (usually one sentence and usually trivial) news item
- something resembling a fact; unverified (often invented) information that is given credibility because it appeared in print
I meant to use it as the first definition. If my notepad ever runs out I’ll have to start thinking in earnest – and then my Blogs will really suffer.