things you didnt know, but should... mine is rice :/

[RainbowsAndFrogs]

i honestly have just had to google how rice is made. i wasnt sure if it was man made or grown. i know
i knew but wasnt 100%

honestly i have A levels and generally educated, although apparently not as much as i thought?

please tell me im not alone!

@Thecobwebsarewinning

I used to work for a company based in Central London but with warehouses in Billericay. For some reason I thought Billericay was a South Sea Island and was very jealous of colleagues who got to go there for site visits. I was also bewildered that they could be in London in the morning, leave for Billericay at lunchtime and be back at their desks the following morning. It mystified me that they could fly there and back so quickly. At some point the penny dropped and I realised that Billericay was only about 35 miles away in Essex. Luckily I was very junior and very shy so had never expressed my amazement out loud.

Years later my sister and her husband were on a long round the world trip and we were making plans for me to join them for a holiday. When I told her the dates I could travel she told me they would be in Patagonia. I enthusiastically agreed to look into flights and meet them there. When I hung up the phone I had to google Patagonia to find out where it was. Until that point I had thought it was a mythical place like Atlantis. I now know it's Southern Argentina and can thoroughly recommend it as a place to visit.

I thought Billericay was in Ireland!

I thought palm oil came from gorillas hands 🤦‍♀️ I’ve no idea where that came from. I’m nearly 50 and usually fairly bright 😂

It was only a few years ago that I realised the teams in University Challenge didn't actually sit in tiers.

@YellowEllis - I recently learned this as my daughters friend was showing where her new kidney is and that she has 3 now !

I was not aware til a month or so ago that the Bruno Mars song about getting married does NOT involve dancing Jewish people. It's dancing juice! Like booze. There was a video doing the rounds of someone proposing to their girlfriend to this song which did have dancing Jewish people in it which confused me.

I did not know about cabbages and Brussel sprouts!

@WattleOn - I didn’t know either until a few years ago. We have a caravan on a site and I always wondered why they moved the caravans off the pitches in the winter months but just put them round the edges of the site. It was then I learned it was because the Canadian geese come and take over the whole site . When we go back in March it’s disgusting for a few weeks!

In my defence I had baby brain .
I asked my partner that if a plane flew for a mile and a car drove for a mile would it cover the same distance 😳
I got confused with air miles.

Reading up thread , asked partner this morning (mechanic) about a lever to override auto gear boxes to manual and he confirmed . He said a few new cars can do this!

Knew about Statue of Liberty. I've blown my partners mind reading this thread to him!

The Nivarna lyrics made me giggle ( missed posters name)

With the lights out it's less dangerous
Here we are now entertain us
I feel stupid and contagious
Here we are now entertain us
A mulatto, an albino, a mosquito, my libido
Yeah hey .

Following on from Blackadder/Mr Bean, I remember being totally shocked as a child that Mary Poppins and Fraulein Maria (Sound of Music) were both played by Jule Andrews

I didn't know till a few years back Kazakhstan was a real place. I thought it was made up for the Borat film.

Which cars can you over ride the automatic gear box?

My old Hyundai did.

@ShelbyCherryBlossom

"Blood is thicker than water" actually means the complete opposite of what everyone uses it for. It means that the blood spilt between soldiers in battle is thicker than the water of the womb, so basically friends who stand by you are more important than those you're related to.

Only learnt this recently after my grandpa kept saying it and I googled its origin. I love telling people now that I know!

That's still not quite right. www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/19/messages/141.html

@Anordinarymum a Shetland pony will always be a Shetland pony regardless of if its 1 or 99.

Shetland is a breed, and that doesn't change.

@GameofPhones

Winston Churchill's mother WAS American.

Now the new Chinese Belt and Road thing - is that right, or is it Belton Road, or Belt on Road? I can never quite catch what is being said.

@GameofPhones

It's belt AND road.

Although, confusingly, the road part refers to the new maritime shipping routes and the belt part refers to the old "Silk Road" route from China through central Asia to Turkey and then europe.

@TheUnquestionedAnswer bulls come in multiple colours, just like cows.

Something I didn't know till I was over 30 - the green bumps at the top of broccoli are flower buds.

@LethargicLumpOfLockdownLard

DS14 and I were arguing about this the other day. He said minutes and reckons he has timed it, I thought it was levels. DH says it isn't minutes on all toasters, just some of them. I'm not sure who is right.

I believe it's your DH.

Most (practically all) toasters do work on time - but it's not minutes, it's just a certain number of seconds.

More expensive toasters sometimes also have a thermocouple as well which sort of works out if the toaster is already hot (ie you're now doing a second or third lot of toast) and, if that is the case, then it will reduce the time a bit to take account of that fact so that you don't burn the second lot of toast. But cheap toasters won't generally have this.

My £15 toaster definitely takes longer on the first pop and then is much faster when it has warmed up. I times the old more expensive one too when this claim popped up last year. It's definitely just levels and not time

Or if it is time - like you say it's definitely not minutes or most of the higher numbers would be cremating your toast long before it popped

Most auto cars have actual gears as well? Mine does. I'm guessing it's for emergency or snow etc when you need to have more control? Wouldn't want to be going down an icy hill sat on the brake pedal! 🙈

@sashh

Which cars can you over ride the automatic gear box?

My old Hyundai did.

My Golf dsg

@midnightstar66

Or if it is time - like you say it's definitely not minutes or most of the higher numbers would be cremating your toast long before it popped

I think it's a law of MN that every time this thread is started it must include a debate on the petrol pointers on cars and the settings on toasters

If you've got some spare time do a search and you'll find 100s if not 1000s of posts.

TL:DR - not all cars have a pointer and the settings don't equate to minutes

@Ohdoleavemealone

Anything to do with cars. Can't change tyres, check oil or even pop the bonnet!

As a side, I recently discovered that the pressure cooker makes the best rice with the least effort.

Me too, no more standing over a stove stirring risotto, just put everything in the pressure cooker and turn on for 7 minutes, voila, amazing risotto (I do mine with lemon rind, peas and goats cheese, lush)

Nights in white satin - I can’t understand how so many people are confused about this. The bed sheets are white satin and you sleep on them during the night. The image of knights in satin would never cross my mind.

@Hadsuchahardday

Nights in white satin - I can’t understand how so many people are confused about this. The bed sheets are white satin and you sleep on them during the night. The image of knights in satin would never cross my mind.

Well done you but it's an extremely well common misconception as this thread proves

I knew lots of the things posted but I've read enough of these types of threads to know that some people believe the most bizare things that defy common sense

We have only a few extremely wealthy landlords in town who have bought up most of the shop buildings in our little village over the years. Most of the small business owners had 20 or 25 year leases at a manageable monthly rent...the cobbler, the baker, art shop, dry cleaners, pharmacy, etc. No problems until their old leases ran out and it was time to sign new ones.
The cobbler had to shut down permanently because the landlord tripled the rent at the end of the his lease. He could no where near afford to pay it. After he cleared out his inventory he put a sign in the window saying " Closed forever"
Several days later above the Closed sign somebody had written on the window "DUE to AVA RICE "

Several of us couldn't work out who this Ava Rice was who caused our only cobbler to lose his business. It was a hot topic on NextDoor for a few days until an educated soul sorted us by telling us that they was no female landlord called Ava Rice...the word was actually avarice.but since it was written in all capital letters it was hard to figure out that it was only one word. We all felt like idiots, but definitely agreed with the sentiment