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.

caroldecker - according to the person who told me, the height of the father is irrelevant in this instance.

I was def taught in genetics part of biology a level that height usually is average of two parents +/- 15cm (it may have been 10cm for girls?) I know I'm taller than both my mum and dad, as is my middle sister, yet the youngest is shorter than both, but we're all within the "right" numbers.

So if mum was gigantic and dad tiny, the child would rarely be as tall as their mother, whether male or female. Plus bear in mind that recently every generation has gotten taller due to improvements in health etc. And of course, its not true for dwarfism anyway.

Most men prefer women shorter, and most women prefer men taller, and male children are usually on the taller side of the equation, and girls on the shorter - so it would def be usual for a male child to outgrow its mother. Plus the woman may have shrunk with age anyway!

I'm going to google it!

haha, I found a mn thread about it from 5 years ago

Otis is an international company founded in the US several decades before Otis Redding was born. They have offices all over the UK, but none in Reading - companies that size don't make business location decisions based on shaky puns.

Thaaaaaaaankyouuuu for the pun explanation punk!!

That is so cool, balloon (about angels and helicopters).

I didnt get it either, fast

pink used to be for boys, while blue was for girls. This was true during the Edwardian era. Pink was regarded as a pale red, hence active, while blue was regarded as passive and suitable for girls.

Some dim 'researchers' did a study 'proving' an innate leaning towards pink in girls a few years back - claimed it was due to gathering berries back in pre-history. Dunderheads, a simple check would have shown 'pink is for girls' is quite a recent phenomenon. And that most edible berries aren't pink!

I knew a couple who called their son Otis. I said 'oh, after Otis Redding?' and they said no, they were standing a lift and noticed the sign... WHY would you tell strangers that, why not just pretend it was after the singer?

Mayve he was, erm, conceived in said lift

Genuphobia = fear of knees (Genophobia = fear of sex)

The river Severn has the 2nd largest tidal range in the world...hence the Severn bore 'tidal wave' beloved of surfers

Bob Holness did NOT play the sax on Baker Street

Stuart Maconie made that 'fact' up for the NME swampus.

This thread is great, really loving the angels facts.

hmm the pink and blue thing.

There was something in it about boys being made to be invisible to demons (a bit like needing protection against the evil eye that is still common in many countries) Boys were dressed in pink because it made them less visible and girls in blue because it was the colour of sky and therefore more visible?

I really can't remember it, but it was along those lines. Just can't remember why the pink was invisible.... (or why as a mother of a girl you would want you baby to be visible to the evil spirits!)

When we lived in Kazakhstan, you never complimented a baby because that drew attention to it, so the spirits would notice it and then give the baby trouble. For the same reason every baby had an evil eye brooch pinned to their hat, to deflect the bad eye directed at the child. Except ours, and they thought we were very brave when we said we didn't believe it.

Oh and to the poster who said angels would need a 6foot breastbone to fly, that is assuming they are made of the same stuff as humans. If they re supposed to be another species, they made be constructed quite differently form us and therefore very light!

OMG octopusinasantasack - I think that actually tallies with quite a bad allergy I have in terms of recurrence over the years...!!?

steppe, I didn't say angels needed a 6ft breastbone, I said that's what early church theologians believed!

I loved that they looked at it as a logical problem, to work out how angels would be constructed.

sounds like the ''how many angels can you fit on the head of a pin'' debate

and apologies, I did realise you were quoting someone else, not that you believed it

Oh, sorry! And yes, does sound like that debate.

beyond I believe the adrenaline/ epinephrine thing is because some US pharma company copyrighted the name adrenaline, it doesn't really apply in UK.

steppe

I'm pretty sure that pink for boys was a custom as red used to be a strong colour associated with men and pink is a "diluted" version of red.

blue for girls symbolises the Virgin Mary.

anyone heard similar?

Yeah, ive heard that too, zing

Prunes were referred to as "sugar plums" by the Victorians.

So the Sugar Plum Fairy, as in The Night Before Christmas...While sugar plum fairies danced in her head" were really Prune Fairies!

Kept her regular I s'pose.

if you eat a huge amount of prunes approx 12 hours before giving birth you'd better take a big can of air freshener with you to the hospital - just in case you release a cloud of bio hazard grade poisonous prune gas while in labour, which makes the MWs eyes water and your husband to almost throw up.

Just take my word for it...

Duck quacks do echo. (Myth Busters proved it)

Marmite is/was made from the gunk left at the end of brewing session.