Tell us an interesting random fact you stumbled across (Part 1)

[Babale]

Fried Possum was once a popular Southern dish. Possums were often kept for weeks or months and fattened up before being eaten.

[Lumpy]

@Love_Rhombus

TIL I somehow learned about pebble-mound mice. They sound charming and slightly fictional!

I wonder if they inspired this video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLXQnnVWJGo

[TriPolar]

@Slithy_Tove

I recall a story from the 70’s, when a recreation of a Medieval English village was being constructed, and they had to recruit a team of Japanese thatchers. Things haven’t improved.

I recall reading at least 40 years ago that there were a limited number of thatchers maintaining rooves in the British isles. I doubt many more of taken up the trade in more recent times. IIRC it took at least an acre of thatch to make a new roof on a house. Thatched rooves last a long time if properly constructed and not as much fresh thatch is needed to maintain them. Old thatch is pulled out from below a supporting wooden frame and new thatch tied on top over time.

[PatrickLondon]

I think there may be room for some optimism about thatchers:

Brief History | Thatched Roofing Specialists in UK | NSMT

[Slithy_Tove]

@Love_Rhombus

I stumbled on the page of this fellow: Revilo P. Oliver. Odious anti-semite, but the fact that his name is a palindrome that has been handed down in his family is interesting. I pity all of the normal Revilos out there who must labor under the name.

Rats, Findagrave.com lists no known burial site, so there’s no way to leave a small stone on the tomb as homage (a really, really small stone: the minerals ordinarily passed in urine).

[TriPolar]

@Babale

Fried Possum was once a popular Southern dish. Possums were often kept for weeks or months and fattened up before being eaten.

Still popular with some. As with many similar critters a diet of persimmons will add wonderful flavor to the meat.

[Askance]

@TriPolar

I recall reading at least 40 years ago that there were a limited number of thatchers maintaining rooves in the British isles. I doubt many more of taken up the trade in more recent times.

I don’t know, one of them was the UK Prime Minister for a while.

[TruCelt]

@Slithy_Tove

Never could tell what went into each bottle

Tall and narrow in rear - Salt and pepper
Pointy conical in foreground left - Sugar- the top pulls up with the weight when you turn it over.
Fat round pot in middle foreground - chutney or jam
Narrower round pot on right foreground - mustard
Tall skinny bottle on table - vinegar

[Slithy_Tove]

Thanks @TruCelt. Now I can visualize what Mark Twain’s Bad Little Boy was up to when he stole the jam and replaced it with tar.

[TruCelt]

@Slithy_Tove

Now I can visualize what Mark Twain’s Bad Little Boy was up to when he stole the jam and replaced it with tar.

Interestingly, the contents of those jars and bottles was far more a statement of wealth than the silver with which they were adorned.

[eschereal]

@hajario

Victorians had three things on the dinner table, the way we have salt and pepper. Two were a salt cellar and a white or black pepper shaker. No one knows what the third was. It was so ubiquitous in the Victorian age that they didn’t name it or talk about it in diaries, recipes, house keeping journals, etc. It’s usually a small square box-shaped porcelain thing, usually with a lid.

I am reliably informed that it contained the antidote.

[Briny_Deep]

As everyone knows, the phrase “couldn’t get elected dogcatcher” refers to the very lowliest of elected offices, though there are no elected dogcatchers anymore. (There was one, in Vermont, until just a few years ago when Vermont changed the position to one of appointment.)

I learned today from The Comics Curmudgeon (scroll down a bit to the 1.5.2024 comment on Hagar the Horrible) that the office of dogcatcher was once an important and esteemed office. Josh is, I think, pretty knowledgeable of Viking lore and history, maybe has a masters degree in that area, and says:

Many medieval Scandinavians communities relied on herding for meat and milk, so controlling wolves and other canines was a task entrusted to only the most skillful hundafangari, or “dog-catchers.” This role would be assigned by a vote in the thing, the traditional Norse assembly that represented one of the earliest democratic bodies in northern Europe.

[Al128]

Most Aston Martin models carry the DB prefix (DB12, DB6, DBX, DBS) …

the DB actually stands for David Brown, the industrial gearbox people ( https://dbsantasalo.com )

DB owned AM … and the owner of David Brown installed his name in the marque and its being carried on ever since …

[Casparlatete]

I read in the 16th century, England completely controlled the channel, nothing could pass through it without being allowed to by the British - much to the annoyance of the Spanish in order to get to the Spanish Netherlands.

Now we can’t even stop the invasion of a few rubber dinghies

[Mark_Finn]

La Paz (Bolivia) at an altitude of 3700 m or 12,000 ft - has an annual marathon, attracting about a thousand runners over various distances.

The winning time in a recent year was 3h 7m - about an hour more than a marathon at or near sea level.

[engineer_comp_geek]

Moderator Note

@Casparlatete

I read in the 16th century, England completely controlled the channel, nothing could pass through it without being allowed to by the British - much to the annoyance of the Spanish in order to get to the Spanish Netherlands.

Now we can’t even stop the invasion of a few rubber dinghies

This is more of a commentary on current politics and events than an interesting random fact. If you want to make a point like this, please do so in one of the more appropriate threads, not here.

[Al128]

following up on a link of the water-clock thread (FQ?) … I found out that:

1°C water is 7 times more viscuous (sp?) than 99°C water …

(and subsequently water-clocks that rely on viscuocity of water (e.g. water dripping through a long small tube) will be notoriously off with temp-swings like day-night)

[Casparlatete]

Point taken. The epilogue was not essential.

[Casparlatete]

Simon Hoggart’s recollection of coming down to breakfast one day to find his parent’s house guest, W.H.Auden, “tracing the grid from the Observer crossword on to baking paper so that he could solve it without spoiling it for anyone else”.

[markn_1]

I just read in an article in the Lowering the Bar blog that for over 500 years, between 1264 and 1827, in order to get a Master of Arts degree at Oxford, you had to swear an oath to never be reconciled with some guy named Henry Symeonis. For most of that time, no one had any idea who Henry was or why it was important not to be reconciled with him. It was only in 1912 that a researcher discovered some information about Henry. Apparently he murdered someone in Oxford and then later was pardoned by the King. The Oxford officials didn’t take too well to that pardon, so they added this clause to the Master of Arts oath to express their displeasure. The blog notes that the inadvertent Streisand effect of this act was to enshrine the despised Henry’s name in history long after all the facts were forgotten.