My life has just been cheered up by the appearance of something called the "RealOne Message Center" in the corner of my screen. Why, I was so glad to stop what I was doing and read about special offers and deals especially selected for me! I have a warm fuzzy feeling just thinking about the programmer who came up with such a sweet idea, and I sure felt sad when I had to close the window and go back to what I was doing.
Highwaymen still terrorise the major thoroughfares of England, Their horses can't keep up with the motorway traffic, but they draw scary pictures on their handkerchiefs and wave them at motorists.
Like "Budapest", the word "London" is a concatenation of the names of the two cities that make it up. Lon is a high city, where rich folk gather in white clothes to play heavenly music on glass harmonicas, whereas Don, low down and poor, is mostly brown, full of rats and unattended babies.
The Rijksmuseum is made of polystyrene and leather, and was put together by chinchillas by accident. Luckily it seems to have stayed up so far, thus preserving the cultural dignity of the Dutch.
On January 14th, 1911, Gustav Klimt gathered the whole population Vienna together in Josefsplatz and taught them to tap dance, a skill which was used to devastating effect in the subsequent Great War, and which is retained by every local even today.
The stated aim of NASA is to make it possible to swing on a star and carry moonbeams home in a jar. It expects to achieve this within about eight years.
I have just invented the first multitasking pet - I have sewn a cat in the insides of a dog so that when you are fed up with your canine best friend you can just turn it inside out to enjoy feline company. Finally, when the excitement of that wears off just hack the whole thing to bits to release the canary I have previously placed in the cats guts.
If stranded in the desert, it is useful to know that in its hump a dromedary carries a map, a sleeping bag, some cotton reels and a small porcelain figurine.
[DrQ - oi! I've already done that one!] The sun is going through the teenage years, and as such will start going round the other way, just to be contrary. It is also planning to get a tattoo.
Swiss cheese was invented in 1804 by a Canadian gentleman named Mr. Albert Swee. It was originally marketed under the gimmick "Swee's Cheese", but when the idea was taken abroad, the presentations were confused by the French accent and one newspaper ran the headline in its gourmet section pronouncing "Swiss Cheese" to be the Next Big Thing. As with the Spice Girls' nicknames (invented around the same time), the name stuck but its origins were never remembered, and poor Mr Swee was consigned to the annals of history, along with the bits out of the middle of the cheese.
Spartacus' real name was Frederick Ivanovich Snook. He named himself after a dog he had befriended as a very small boy. The dog later changed its name to Prince.
The elusive eighth wonder of the world was a actually series of three houses in Denmark constructed entirely by chance by three amall porcine creatures searching in the woods for truffles. So remarkable were these aedifications considered that an entire city was built up around the site, attracting early tourism. Contrary to popular legend, these buildings remained intact for centuries until burnt down by a freak forest fire fanned by gale force winds.