Friday Fact

(Cor, can't seem to stop posting today. Blogging vomiting - must be an after-effect of the virus.)

Anyway, this fact just exemplifies why I LOVE fashion - and it's how the pencil skirt, this season's must-have, was inspired. Apparently, it was influenced by Mrs Hart Berg, the first American woman to fly in a plane, and who tied rope around her skirts to keep them from flapping in flight.

So now you know - it'll certainly be a comfort to me that I don't have to look like a pencil as I hobble around.

Friday Fact

Now, I read a fact like this and I automatically want to prove it wrong, but I've been trying all morning and I can't find another word that'll do. Hmm. Anyway, apparently, ALMOST is the longest commonly used word in the English language with all the letters in alphabetical order.

Friday Fact

In Japan, apparently, a man's 60th birthday is commemorated with a special ceremony. He is given a red kimono, which denotes that he no longer has the responsibilities of being a mature adult.

(whereas in the UK he buys himself a red sports car at the age of 45 and calls it a mid-life crisis. Oooo, put those claws away, Salway.)

Friday Fact

If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days, you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee.

And boy, would your throat be dry enough to appreciate it.

Friday Fact

There are more people alive today than have ever died.

OK, I have a reason for putting this one up. My partner was told it the other day, and I'm still not sure if I can believe it or not. Any views, sources, final yes's or no's would be extremely welcome. Astonishing if it is true.

Friday Fact(s)

From A Writer's Book of Days by Judy Reeves:

Different ways of invoking the Muse

* The poet Friedrich von Schiller used to keep rotten apples under the lid of his desk, open it, inhale deeply, and compose.

* Balzac drank fifty cups of coffee in a day.

* Colette first picked fleas from her cat, then wrote.

* Voltaire used his lover's naked back as a writing desk.

* Alexandre Dumas, the elder, wrote his nonfiction on rose-coloured paper, his fiction on blue and his poetry on yellow.

Friday Fact

(Ooooo, now this one seems like a challenge!)

No piece of normal-size paper can be folded in half more than 7 times.

Friday Fact

In most watch advertisements the time displayed on the watch is 10:10 because then the arms frame the brand of the watch (and make it look like it is smiling).

Friday Fact

90 percent of women who walk into a department store immediately turn to the right.

Friday Fact

From possibly the most interesting timewaster I've found in a long time, your first Friday Fact. Amazing but this actually works:

While sitting at your desk make clockwise circles with your right foot. (go ahead no one will see you) While doing this, draw the number "6" in the air with your right hand.

Your foot will change direction.