Your “how did I not realise that” moments.

[Meruem]

I am getting too involved in the corona virus threads so wanted to start something lighthearted!

Went to visit DSis recently. She bought a wine box. I have bought the odd one in the past and once the little tap stopped producing wine just threw it out. I did not realise that there is nearly a whole bottle of wine left in the bag at that point! I felt really stupid but now view it as “free” wine given I would have thrown it away!

What silly things didn’t you realise until someone pointed it out to you?

I will never ever forget this. Way back in the late 80's / early 90's I was an avid Trekkie. My favourite episode was Robin Hood themed and featured the infrequent villain of the piece, Q. The title of the episode Q-Pid. (Google reliably informs me that it first aired in 1991). Strange title but it's Star Trek so, anything goes, maybe its not meant to be understood.

Fast forward to around 2011 and a friend texted me saying she was playing cupid over a couple. The, by now, very rusty penny finally came clattering through my brain, I was utterly howling (and so glad nobody else was home bar the dog!) I had tears rolling down my face.

I ended up telling my mom about my little revelation and honestly the look she have me really was one of "what idiot did I give birth too" pity.

There been a few others but that one takes the cake for me at over two decades in the making!

:o:o:o @ Q-pid! I would do that!

Gin is not flavoured vodka, Vodka is a neutral spirit that can be flavoured. Gin has to have juniper in its composition to be legally called gin

I'm happy to stand corrected, I'd always thought of them as two different things. Just that I'd heard more than once recently about them being the same. I can sleep easily again.

I have a friend who lived in Jedda (sp?) and the authorities turned a blind eye to them making their own booze as long as it stayed on their compound. They would make vodka and then buy gin flavouring (which they could get in local shops!) to add to it to make it taste like gin. So it wasnt officially gin but it tasted like it.

Querty keyboard. Just thought that was a random name the person who invented it came up with.

My stepchild casually informed me a couple of years ago (in a tone that definitely had a whiff of how did you not know that) that it's very easy to see the difference between a turtle and a tortoise one has feet and the other has flippers.

It had never occurred to me before even though I had seen both of these animals independently of each other and had seen both feet and flippers but had never actually thought about the fact that only each species has one or the other.

My Grandad looked after my goldfish while we went on holiday when I was 10. It was a lovely golden colour when we went but silver and somewhat larger when we came home. Grandad said that their water was different and that had caused it to change colour.
The fish lived for eight years which was quite incredible considering it'd been won at the fair, fairground fish only usually lived for a few weeks.

I was 40 when I had a light bulb moment and realised that the fish had died while we were away and my Grandad had replaced it but hadn't got one the same colour. My much amused Mom confirmed that was actually what had happened.

My recent omg moment was I was doing my usual googling in relation to whatever I’m watching at the moment and the lovely John Rubinstein (an actor I feel sure a lot of you will be going “who?” Initially but when you see his pic will go “ah yes I know him”)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Rubinstein

Is father to none other than this chap

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Weston

Who isn’t quite as familiar a face yet but definitely on the way to being.

I love learning things like this.

“Tea bags cant really go off can they?” Of course they can! Tea goes stale after a while definitely doesn’t taste as nice.

“I couldn't understand why the Cold War was such a big deal given that the USA and USSR are on opposite sides of the map...

Yeah, the same map that joins together at the back to form a globe.” My brother was mid 20’s when he learned this! Came up due to a trivial pursuit question about how much the USA paid the Russians for Alaska (£7m approx) for starters he scoffed and thought it a “trick question” our bemused faces made him realise it wasn’t...

...huge discussion ensued with us all having to convince him that not only were USA and Russia actually very close to each other but also that Cuba was less than 100 miles from USA (Cuban missile crisis mentioned in same conversation) which he also thought we were kidding him about that!

That’s when the penny dropped as to why the USA freaked out about the Cuban missile crisis!

How he’d got to that age having grown up during the Cold War and it being on the bloody news and in the papers every day PLUS numerous documentaries our parents let us watch I don’t know! His face at the end was a picture, in his mind his world had shifted massively that evening.

My ex (who’s mother is a fabulous baker) also didn’t believe there were real carrots in carrot cake. Made him help me make one that weekend...whole way through “nah, this is gonna taste weird” 😂 it became his signature bake! Although his buttercream is shite! He puts WAY too much sugar in.

Re microwaveable plates you lot are clearly too young to remember the first microwaves which came without a plate OR a turntable. So you had instructions on several products to “turn product 90° half way through cooking” I kid you not. And if you forgot half the damn thing would be cooked and the other half frozen!

“I've only discovered recently that gin is just flavoured vodka” err what?! I don’t think so they’re both fermented but different items fermented aren’t they? And gin MUST contain fermented juniper int the Uk at least to be legally gin yes?

@Ginkypig

I can't tell you how aggravating I find it when American's insist on calling tortoises 'turtles'. They're 2 entirely different creatures!!!

Only recently realised how many women's names are derived from men's

Alana, Michaela, Maxine, Martina, Robina are fairly obvious, but only recently saw that Joanna is probably from Johan

furry I did at least know the were different animals but it had never occurred to me that tortoises never have flippers because they are not sea dwelling creatures and are almost exclusively land dwelling only.

Fun fact though technically all tortoises, terrapins and turtles are infact turtles as that is umbrella term for the family that these animals belong to.

Why would microwaveable meals say "put on a microwaveable plate" if they're already on one?

I'm not buying that.

Gin/Vodka. I did a tour around the Lakeland distillery recently, and learnt that for them the difference is this:

Vodka is pure ethanol (of whatever source), with water added to get the desired strength, and flavourings added if needed.

Gin is pure ethanol (of whatever source), redistilled with juniper in (and other herbal flavourings if preferred), then water added to the desired strength.

Their gin and vodka is Very Nice Indeed, and I don't even like vodka. Recommended if you're up in the northern Lakes.

@Dontsayyouloveme I wouldn’t feel bad about not knowing about the microwaveable plate thing. Back in the early 1980s I worked for a very snazzy electronics shop in Regents St in London. One of our big sellers was a (then) bargain microwave that cost £249.99. That was the same amount as my monthly repayment as my 100% mortgage on my flat at the time! I was the cooking/selling expert on this new fangled product and made a small fortune in commission selling them. To this day I still put a china plate inside the microwave rather than placing things on the clearly visible microwaveable plate inside!

One of my happiest memories of that time is my grandad coming to visit my new flat. He had read about microwaves in the paper and refused to stand near mine in case it made him infertile - he was a 67 year old father of 9 at the time and my granny was a similar age but he didn’t want to take any chances!

When I realised that the name of the Kenny Everett character "Cupid Stunt" was a Spoonerism.

Still makes me laugh.

My sister is also horrified at the revelation that the little piggy didn't go shopping. We both imagined him with a wicker basket.

Loving this thread.

On the subject of winer in a box - do you all take the bag out and squeeze it?

Because if you blow the bag up like a balloon you get even more out.

@DropYourSword I pronounce it tor-toys, and por-poys, and I'm not from anywhere near the north west. I thought that was normal and correct!

I only realised recently that mini cheddars are in fact small versions of cheddar biscuits.

Honestly, my mind is still blown when I think about it. How did I not see this...!??

It was only a couple of years ago that I realised the HP in HP sauce stands for Houses of Parliament. Even though there is a picture of the building and Big Ben on the bottle. It was a bit of a lightbulb moment.

@LangSpartacusCleg I thought it was
"Stab The Bastard Ex-Husband" and couldn't work out why it didn't always make sense in the sentence !

Along the lines of the piggy going to market...

When the chicken crossed the road to get to the other side, it's not the other side of the road, but heaven (it dies crossing the road)

That when ready meals say on the cooking instructions, ‘put on a microwaveable plate’, the plate that comes with the microwave IS the microwaveable plate and that you don’t have to put the meal on another one!

I think sometimes they recommend putting the ready meal container on a separate plate because the container gets hot and not as stable so harder to take out of the microwave.

If you look at the symbol of a petrol pump on the dashboard of your car, there's an arrow pointing left or right to show you which side of the car is the filler cap. MOH didn't know that and he's been repairing/dealing cars all his life.