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I don't see how that relates to the phrase meaning "to reveal a secret" :confused: The other explanation made more sense. :shrug:

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...and their fur is transparent.

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this year is the 60th anniversary of both d-day :tu: and operation Market Garden :cool:

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Did you know that during a military execution (by firing squad), of the ten rounds given to the squad one would be blank, and the rest would be live. This was done in an effort to give the members of the firing squad a mental 'out' from the emotionally traumatic order to kill one of their own.

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It's the 60th anniversary of quite a lot of things; 1944 was a busy year. Off the top of my head, I can think of:

Monte Cassino

Operation Anvil (the invasion of southern France)

The Battle of the Bulge

The Russian army smashing Army Group Centre and finishing any hopes of even a stalemate for Germany.

Stalin deliberately stopping the Russian army short of Warsaw so that the Polish Home Army was destroyed.

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yes the Monte Cassino anniversary was last week :tu: am going to start a ww 2 spin off therad soon so we can post all are great knowledge of the war in one Place !

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I visited the British war cemetery there once many years ago; a very sad experience. On, IIRC, a nearby hillside was the large Polish war cemetery.

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In China nobody actually eats 'chinese' food.

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The fiver is the longest running denomination of Bank of England note: it was first issued in 1793.

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Julius Caesar gave us our modern calendar with 12 months and 365 days. Originally there were only 10 months, running from March to December. The winter time didn't have any months.
Then they added two more, but you can still tell that there were 10 because, September (from the Latin septem)- means 7 (but now it's the 9th month). October (from the Latin octo) means 8 (but now it's the 10th month). November (from the Latin novem) - means 9 (and now it's the 11th month) and finally December(from the Latin decem) - means 10 (and of course now it's the 12th month.)

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and the two months added ? .....

July & August - named after Julius & some bloke Augustus. :)

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Days of the week are named after various things ;

Sunday - The Sun (obvious really)
Monday - The Moon
Tuesday - Teu (sp ?) - a God
Wednesday - Woden - a god
Thursday - Thor - a god
Friday - Frigg - A God (ess ?)
Saturday - Saturn (a god, not the planet).

:)

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No they were Janus & Februs - do your own research :naughty:

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Regarding the Gods, most of these are Viking Gods. As I remember from history lessons, Thor rode his cart across the clouds, and this made a bit of a racket. We call it 'thunder' these days. I.e the word thunder and thursday both derive from Thor.

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The old god thor rode into town upon his favourity filly, "i'm thor!" he cried, the horse replied "then get a thaddle thilly"

thats is about all i remember from history :erm:

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Yes its the same in German - Donnersdag is Thursday from Donner - Thunder and Blitzen - Lightning - 2 good names for reindeer there as well.

Pretty much explains why my kebab is always overdone.

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According to my turkish friend.... Donner means Donkey ;)

yummy yummy!

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Monkeybreath, don't tell me things like that :sick: :sick:

Friday nights aren't going to be the same now :(

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That explains the taste of my overdone kebab - now we are getting somewhere

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Or in Dutch even, where Thursday is Donderdag, and Thunder is Donder (lightning is 'bliksem').

There is an old Danish saying. I won't go into the etymology here, but it translates to something like 'Never eat a Kebab on Thursday'

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Well given the donkey explanation, it will be kebab thursday = saw ass on friday

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It's an interesting theory, but see:

http://www.wordorigins.org/wordorl.htm#letcat

If you go around the HMS Victory (which, btw, is the oldest commissioned warship in the world as it's still on the British Naval Lists), they'll tell you that when a sailor was to be punished he would be given a length of rope to unbraid (which was made from three strands of triple wound rope, hence the nine tails) and that would then be used for his punishment.

Officers would not punish the crew because it was "manual work", something which a gentleman would not stoop to.

The cat would most certainly make your back bleed, but the punishment would not stop when you bled, the number of strokes was pre-determined by the crime you committed.

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Unfortunately (and I'm sure someone's thinking of claiming I'm being pedantic or feeling it necessary to correct every slight mistake) but this is a perennial myth.

See http://www.snopes.com/language/stories/brass.htm for details.

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Interestingly, the Victory is to be repaired using oaks planted 200 years ago on the recommendation of Nelson himself. Lord Nelson urged that trees be planted in the Forest of Dean,Glos, in 1802 when he learned that many of its oaks had been plundered for charcoal. In a report to Parliament he said the trees should be replanted to provide timber for future warships. HMS Victory's commanding officer. Lt Commander Frank Nowosielski will visit the forest to collect the timber from two trees that have been felled.

Talk about forward planning.:D

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Approximately every 6 months when the earth rotates on it's axis, North Korea becomes South Korea and vice versa, hence Bush's description of the "axis of evil".

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From Tuesdays Times:

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I'll bet that there where not many Nowosielski's about in Nelsons time.:)

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Another myth cruely shattered. :cry: ;)

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Think that might actually be Freya - The Norse Goddess of Love and Beauty.

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You are correct about Thursday being named after Thor (or Thunor to the Germans). It is also true that he rode across the heavens on his Goat driven chariot. The thunder that he was famour for creating, was the sound of Thor striking mountain tops with his magical warhammer Mjolnir. :)

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I think you'll find that they're variant spellings of the same name. Many Norse gods have various forms in the the different Germanic languages, For example we have Woden (Anglo-Saxon, I think), Wotan (German), Odin or Odinn (Scandinavian, I believe). Then you have Heimdall, which is something like Heimdalr in Icelandic and also Loga (German) and Loki (Anglo-Saxon).

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On the other hand, all this replacement for various parts reminds me of Trigg's description of his road sweeper's broom; the same one that he'd had for 20 years. Of course, there'd been various new handles and broomheads over that period. :)

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You're right. I had forgotten about the hammer. :)

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The changeover year that brought the calendar back into synch with the seasons had some humongous number of days in it. And, of course, he introduced the leap year. Unfortunately, the Roman senate managed to mess up it's first application; I forget the exact details.

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If yuo get a little capsule you get with Kinder eggs, fill it with baking powder and hot water, put the top on and shake it and throw it, it will explode in the air.

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Sweet, very cool site mate. Thanks. :D :tu:

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:eeek:

Why, at almost 30, am I only hearing about this now???

*legs it out to buy a Kinder egg....

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Anyone old enough to remember the little plastic submarines you got in cereal packets. They had a small compartment underneath that you filled with baking powder, when placed in a bowl or the bath the sub would then rise and sink several times.

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I was once told (and took it with a large pinch of salt) that a former activity for bored sailors was to make a calcium carbide sandwich, throw it into the ocean and enjoy the subsequent sight of the exploding seagulls.

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Another childhood pastime was to tightly wrap the head of a match in aluminium foil, place the match so that the wrapped head stuck over the edge of the table and hold a lighted match to the aluminium. With a little patience you produced your very own miniature rocket.

No doubt nowadays you would be expelled from school, sued by the parents of any child within 50 ft of it and prosecuted by the HSE for not having done a risk analysis.

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Napoleon apparently also engaged in some similar forward thinking. When he took power in France he ordered that trees be planted alongside all the major roads to shade his troops when marching in the hot summer months.

When he was told that it would take 20 years for the trees to become tall enough for this to be any use he supposedly said words to the effect of "well you'd better get started right away, then!"

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One of the American light cruisers anchored at Pearl Harbour during the Japanese attack of December 1941 was the Phoenix. The Phoenix survived the attack virtually unscathed, however, more than 40 years later she was torpedoed and sunk by the British submarine Conqueror in the South Atlantic. The Phoenix, at the time of her demise, was of course known then as the General Belgrano.

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Poplars, weren't they. And the French authorities now seem to trying to get rid of them. Too many French drivers crashing their cars into them, apparently.

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Well I thought I did - but it seems I mis-read something :dunce: They re-named the two months to July and August, not added them [as I originally interpreted what I had read]. oh well ..... :cool:

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Did you know, that the term 'To Cross The Rubicon' comes from Cesars' invasion of Rome. It means to make a decission that cant be changed.

Edit:- Forgot to say, the Rubicon is a river that divided Alpine Gaul from the province of Rome. :dunce:

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Well it has got to be better than crossing the Styx ;)

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True mate, but we all gotta make that crossing eventually. :(

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And you'd better have your coin ready to pay Charon.

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And there's a variant of Bezique called Rubicon Bezique.

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Strictly speaking, and in support of ÃÃâ€*’¼berpedan try, Cisalpine Gaul (conquered by Rome around the third century BC), as opposed to Transalpine Gaul (the bit that Caesar had just finished conquering).

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Did you know that there is more than one type of infinity?

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Has this got anything to do with the term "living out in the sticks"?

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You could be right, but its taking me forever to try and prove it.....

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Not quite mate. the Styx is the river across which all souls must travel to enter the underworld in Greek mythology. Charon was the Ferryman, to whome the souls of the dead would pay a crossing toll. In ancient Greece and other cultures, the dead would be given a coin, to pay the ferryman to pass into the afterlife. And this also give us a song by Chris de Burg 'Dont Pay the Ferryman'.

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Or that crap song by Gerry & The Pacemakers, if you finished up in Birkenhead you knew you had passed over.:pp :D

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you are a very 'bad' but funny, person, Nikko ;)

- string theory started out with 26 dimensions, but seems to have got it down to 11, lately - of course you can't see them until you get 'really' close :D

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Well, there's plenty of room in Hilbert's hotel while you try to do it.

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I know that, what is the origination of "living out in the sticks" then.

The link to a dead end / point of no return was what I was thinking of.

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You're probably all aware that change of distance with respect to time is called velocity and that change of velocity with respect to time is called acceleration. But did you know that change of acceleration with respect to time is called jerk? (Actually, there's one or two alternative names floating around, but I rather like that one.)

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And did you know that there is only one English king who has been crowned king of France?

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No !!!!

Please explain....

I was under the impression it had the meaning "no end" whatever it applied to.

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Ooh - I remember this from a very old maths book I picked up in a second-hand bookshop in Cambridge - it seems that infinity * any real number = infinity, infinity+ any real number = infinity, infinity + infinity = infinity, but infinity ^ infinity is a bigger infinity than the one you started with. At which point my brain explodes.

Trivial fact - Tchaikovsky and Oscar Wilde were both gay men who married and even had children, in Wilde's case.

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Imagine you have a long list of every positive integer, i.e. the length of the list is infinite.

Then to the right of each integer, write down the number you get when the original is doubled. This list (of all even numbers) is also infinite, and the same length of the first.

Now to the right rewrite the second list, but inserting all odd numbers. This list is also infinite, but twice as long as the other two, even though it contains the same numbers as the first. :confused:

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Why do you say 'was'? :D

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Humpty Dumpty was the nickname of a cannon used during the English Civil War

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cracking your knuckles is the movement of synovial fluid in the joints from high to low pressure areas (see my blog for more ;))

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Mostly true, its what the English archers did to the French to show they hadnt been captured. The french when capturing an English Archer cut off the two fingers so he couldnt use a bow again.

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No it isn't :p:

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Trivial Fact - most of the 'English' archers during the Hundred Years War were in fact Welsh.

Another 100 Years War fact - the English captured the French king John II, who spent the rest of his life in England, mainly hunting, it seems.

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just to add - more precisely, I believe it's origins came from the time of the battle of agincourt. When bow-men were captured, they would have their bow pulling fingers chopped off so they could no longer take arms against the enemy. Those who had not been captured on the battlefield would therefore show the 'V' sign to the enemy as a gesture stating they still had their fingers and could still be deemed as a threat. With time, this became an offensive gesture.

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And another; it was actually about 116 years long.
And a final one; the best side lost. :)

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this thread should be renamed - u probably already know but:

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well how come my fluid mechanics lecturers have LIED to me then? i am shocked and appalled..........

come on mr chiropractor :p:

anyway back on atopic, another one...

did you know that my real name is david? ;)

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Just found this out a few minutes ago....... thanks to people stealing my site's bandwidth i had to check and came across this interesting fact...

Did you know that....if you do an msn search for "i need woman now chat for sex to arabic on msn" ..... MY guestbook is the 1st site link :eek: :eek: :eek:
See the search for yourselves http://search.msn.co.uk/results.aspx...%20on%20%20msn

Now that i've stopped laughing....... i think i'm miffed :erm:

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London is 116 miles from Bristol

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Vermont State highway 116 goes through through the centre of Bristol, Vermont.

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They are horribly misinformed. The crack/pop noise is produced because when you distract the joint surfaces (pull them apart) the pressure drops in the joint. When that happens, nitrogen (which is dissolved in the synovial fluid( joint lubricant)) comes out of solution and forms bubbles which 'pop' or cavitate.....which is why it's called cavitation. :)
20 minutes later it has fully dissolved back into the fluid and you can pop the joint again.....not that you should.

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What a strange place to have children.;)

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Did you Know ?

Bees are born fully grown.

A Dalmation is the only dog that can get gout.

Italy's National Flag was invented by Napoleon.

Most orchids are bisexual

The silkworm has 11 brains