Tell me something useless but interesting I don't know. No googling allowed. Corrections welcomed.

[YourMaNoBraBackOfMyCar]

I love these threads so please tell me all manner of useless info. [Thanks]

Months that begin on a Sunday will always have a Friday the 13th.

Just googled, it was 1607

One of the Hawaiin islands has a couple of beaches that are translated to mean something like "royalty beach" and "paupers beach". The reason behind this is what happens to the bodies of suicides/ drownings and the different floating properties of fat (rich) bodies versus thin (poor) bodies and currents interact and determines which of the beaches the body will wash up on.

No what I mean is that the "New World" ie the Americas were not discovered by the English until Elizabeth I's time. So although sugar had been identified and was being used, it was not by the English.

There is plenty of sugar in fruit though. And Henry must have had carbs from somewhere - he was certainly not on the Atkins!

But the English knew that Columbus had got there? I mean, it wasn't a 'discovery', they were trading with people who had got there. I'll check, but I am surprised if Henry really didn't have access to sugar at all.

books.google.co.uk/books?id=7IHcZ21dyjwC&pg=PA28&lpg=PA28&dq=fifteenth-century+england+refined+sugar+trade&source=bl&ots=2Y5AcMn2Pc&sig=c4z79PkYY2AH3q_O6-Ugr97OX2c&hl=en&sa=X&ei=o2exUs26MKSS7AbXkIHgBA&ved=0CGgQ6AEwCTgK#v=onepage&q=fifteenth-century%20england%20refined%20sugar%20trade&f=false

Sorry for stupidly long link - re. loaf sugar from China and India. I think I might be breaking OP's 'don't google' rule!

Other than that it sounds as if the Portuguese traded with England, and more with the Dutch, and the English wool and cloth trades had really strong links to the Low Countries, so I think he would have had a supply.

I want it to be true, as well, because diabetes makes so much more sense than other options.

I do have a non-google fact, though I can't remember the date: sometime in the fifteenth century, the king called several grocers and apothecaries to examine a load of 'treacle' (disappointingly, probably medicine not, you know, treacle) and when they decided it'd gone off, ordered it all to be burnt at Tower Hill in London, 'as a warning to others'.

I love the idea of a bonfire of sticky medicine, must have absolutely stank.

If anyone had sugar it would have been Henry, wouldn't it?

That was my logic. Might be crap, mind.

Columbus was trading sugar before he went off to the New World. His brother Bartomoleo went to UK to ask Henry VIII to finance the trip ahead of Queen Isabella doing so. He said no.

Leo Fender, of guitar fame, was an inventor, not a musician.He could not play the guitar.

The Duke of Wellington nearly lost the Battle of Waterloo - he was saved by the Prussian allies turning up at the last minute.

Yes you are right, he probably did have access to sugar if anyone did!

As I say, you don't get that fat on nothing!

He was a right porker.

If you drop a tarantula, it will shatter as it has an ectoskeleton. NOT googling as I'm afraid of my life of them but was told this was true. I'm open to correction.

Room Apparently that is true as the heavier the species the greater the terminal velocity. Although its less shatter and more splat!!, think dropping soft fruit from a height.

There used to be a "beard tax" in Russia, which was instituted by one of the Tsars to put the kybosh on a religious sect that grew big beards. (this is what happens when I google to augment eisting knowledge).

Lucius thanks for that. I'm shuddering here thinking of the splat, yuck.

I know I have other random shite info in my brain but I can't seem to think of anything yet. Dh tells me often I'm a hive of useless info

Im shuddering at the thought of massive ugly spiders, bleurgh!!!

Henry VIII ate loads of sugar! Confectionery was a very important part of the display of royal meals - you know, elaborate gilded sugar models etc. At one point the only woman who worked in the kitchens of one of his palaces was the one who did the sugar work.

According to the Peter Brears book on Tudor food, the established sources of supply, Morocco and Barbary, gave way to the Portuguese and Spanish plantations in the New World. From the 1540s there was a refinery in London.

For the 16th c the English national consumption was a pound a head, but as that wouldn't have been evenly distributed, the aristocracy could have had quite a lot. My medieval cookery books have plenty of recipes with sugar in them, too, so it isn't only an Elizabethan thing.

(sorry, does no googling mean you can't check reference books either? )

According to Erasmus (so probably true), there's no mention of the Trinity in the original greek version of the new Testament. It was added by the Catholic Church.

It's true.

People disagreed about what exactly the theology of the Trinity was for yonks. The Eastern Church actually split off from the West because of it, because they didn't want the word 'filioque' ('and the Son') included in the bit of the Creed that sets out the relationship of the Holy Spirit to God the Father and God the Son.

Frogs swallow with their eyes closed as they use the back of their eyeballs to push food into their stomachs.

All crisps expire on a saturday! Learnt on MN

Horses can't vomit

They mainly sleep standing up because the locking mechanism in their legs allows them to sleep and not fall over

It is theorised that a cats purr has mild restorative properties. Something to do with the frequency of the sound causing vibrations in their bones, I didn't really understand it myself But they reckon that's why cats purr when they're scared, as a defense mechanism.