I know this isn’t GQ but have you got a cite for that? I googled and came up blank.
It was in an article in the Guardian to celebrate 10 years of the good Friday agreement I think. So about 2008. I found it online about 5 years ago to show to my eldest son just before he headed to Belfast for a holiday. But it now seems to have vanished from google. Happy to withdraw the comment.
This topic was excised from the Wikipedia article on D&B, in 2006.
You may reach your own conclusions about its truth or otherwise.
Note, however, the history of the mixed beer drink called “Black & Tan” (though not in Ireland).
Question: What animal helped end the bubonic plague?
Answer: Rats.
We all know that the Black Death/bubonic plague was caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, which is transmitted by the bite of fleas to Black Rats, and the rats were the contagion vector which ultimately carried the infected fleas in close proximity to humans, allowing them to be bitten, infected and killed (~75-million) by the bacteria.
The Black Rat (Rattus rattus) is a nasty, well-traveling rat that is readily bitten and infected by Y. pestis-bearing fleas, making it a super-efficient contagion vector of the disease to humans.
Y. pestis, fleas and rats didn’t disappear, yet the bubonic plague eventually ended. Why?
One theory with good traction, is that the vector transmission was broken when the Brown (Norwegian) Rat displaced the Black Rat in Europe. Brown Rats are not readily infected by Y. pestis infected fleas, nor are they great travelers like the Black Rat.
So, Black Rats were the villains who spread the deadliest pandemic in human history, and Brown Rats were the heroes who ended it. Personally, I don’t like any rats (but my cats do).
https://www.liquisearch.com/theories_of_the_black_death/bubonic_plague_theory
In December, 1966, Buffalo Springfield recorded a song about the Sunset Strip teen riots a few weeks before. Their debut album was already in the can and it was too late to include it on that record. Knowing their label wouldn’t commit to a new record until they saw how their first album sold, Steven Sills handed the tape to ATCO label owner Ahmet Ertegun and said, “I have this song here, for what it’s worth, if you want it.”
There are several stories about the origin of the title. Here’s a Rolling Stones piece.
As anyone who’s heard it knows, the phrase “for what it’s worth” appears nowhere in the song. According to one legend, Stills played it for one of the group’s managers, prefacing it with, “Let me play you a song, for what it’s worth.” Springfield singer-guitarist Richie Furay recalls he, Stills, and Young playing new material for Atlantic’s Ahmet Ertegun, a major supporter of the Springfield. “Ahmet had come to Los Angeles and we were at Stephen’s house,” Furay recalls. “At the end of the day, Stephen said, ‘I have another one, for what it’s worth.'”
Similar, but not identical.
And who in the end decided that it was a great title for the song?
The stories imply that it was someone at the label who parsed Stills’ comment incorrectly.
Joni Mitchell also referenced the riot on Sunset Strip in her song, California. “I’ll even kiss a Sunset pig” refers to the Los Angeles police that cracked down on the youthful violarors of the recently imposed curfew.
So a product of a misunderstanding, the way the Byrds’ live/studio double album was called “Untitled”? Wasn’t there also an ELO album named that way (can’t remember the title, I’m not that deep into ELO)?
That Rolling Stones article says:
Everyone else knew the song was special, and the single was rush-released with an amended title, “(Stop, Hey What’s That Sound) For What It’s Worth,” at Ertegun’s suggestion.
Unfortunately, that’s ambiguous whether Ertegun added just the parens or suggested the entire title.
I find number fondling useful for falling back to sleep at night. Recently I’ve pondered an algorithm for finding the roots of perfect squares expressed as triangular numbers. Last night I came up with an algorithm that still worked when I woke up:
A perfect square is the sum of the areas of two triangles
Dividing the area in two yields two areas each equal to the average of the two triangles (m,n)
Sequentially decrementing m and incrementing n will eventually = a triangular number pair
The square root is then n-m
169/2=84.5 m=84 n=85 (m-.5 and n+.5 to make them integers)
m-1=83 n+1=86
m-1=82 n+1=87
m-1=81 n+1=88
m-1=80 n+1=89
m-1=79 n+1=90
m-1=78 n+1=91
91-78=13=169^.5 (13 is the index for the triangular pair)
T12 +T13 =169
Isn’t that the famous Crane Algorithm ?
Could be. I savor these gems for a while before I Google and usually find they are common place.
The Guess Who changed their name from Chad Allan and the Expressions after their record company sent out a single with a teaser band name: Guess Who? on it as a publicity stunt.
I’ve heard that The Band was named in a similar manner when they were nameless and signed a contract that just referred to them as The Band but I didn’t find a cite for that.
Back to album titles, Jackson Brown has never released an album call Saturate Before Using.
No !
I was just reserving the name for you !
I’ll tell my pet Norwegian rats about their heroic ancestors.
Some while ago, I heard a professor on the radio ask “How long does a day last?” Naturally, it was a trick question, of sorts. The answer was that Sunday begins at midnight in the first time zone (just west of the international date line and, over the course of 24 hours, steps into each successive time zone, until the entire world is on the same day. Then it proceeds to depart from each successive time zone, an hour (or so) at a time. Hence, the duration of a given day is 48 hours.
That is nothing more than the fact that
n^2=\frac{n^2-n}2+\frac{n^2+n}2=T_{n-1}+T_n
E.g. 13^2=T_{12}+T_{13}
Could you explain T for us non-math people?