I was, although my home number in my small rural town was quite easy for a young child to remember: “three nine one five, the X residence, Y speaking”
My mum made us kids memorize it. 3915. So we could tell people who to phone if we got lost. She was a teacher, clearly a fairly good one if I still remember some 45 years later.
I should ask my sister, who was only 5 when we moved from that house is she remembers it too. I bet she does. (I was 7)
I had an uncle who used to answer the phone with “County morgue – you kill ‘em, we chill ‘em!” It didn’t matter who was calling (no phone ID in those days), so he might be getting a relative, a survey, the IRS, the local priest, the police station….
He actually had a repertoire of joke replies, which he rotated through. To him, it didn’t matter who was calling. If you were offended, he probably didn’t want to talk to you, anyway.
If you see a reptilian with a name ending in ‘-suchus,’ it’s almost certainly a crocodilian of some kind. Crocodilians are members of an ancient reptile group called Pseudosuchia, ‘false crocodiles,’ as at the time they were not thought to be ancestral today’s critters. The name remained even after today’s crocodilians were found to be indeed descended from that group.
Today I learned in article in The Atlantic about Hitler’s Greenland Obsession that whale oil, imported mostly from Norway, was the biggest import expense for Germany in the mid '30s. Germany was the second buyer for this product in the world, for a total of between 165,000 and 220,000 tons annually. Just imagine as an aside how many whales they had to slaughter for that. Whale oil was fundamental to produce nitroglycerin, a precursor product for dynamite and a key component of the munitions industry. They also ate a lot of it after transforming it to margarine.
The rest of the article is very interesting too, and history does rhyme.
Somebody should tell the temper tanTrump in the White House how WWII ended, in particular who won and who lost.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump tried to revive the whaling industry just to “own the libs”.
New Mexico State Senators and State Representatives do not get a salary, only a daily stipend when in session. In November, one of the things to be voted on is giving them a salary.
From New Scientist this week:
“Humans are the only primates with a chin”!
The meat itself (not the same meat, of course) also occasionally appeared in UK meat rations. Cue Vera Lynn - “Whale meat again…”
Posted in the wrong thread by mistake (Puzzlegal, edited at request of poster.)
Today, February 21, 2026 is…
Another Lewes* related fact (it’s a endlessly interesting place). When we were there a few days ago we stumbled upon a street named Rotten Row. Like the one in London, I thought. Means something in French - I must look it up.
Well. The street name “Rotten Row” is more common than you might think - there are quite a few around. What’s more, there are four separate explanations of the name.(source). In brief:
Hmmm. Pinch of salt optional.
j
* - just inland from the south coast of England, more or less due south of London
The French word for rubbish bin is poubelle. I thought it was a word like the Spanish papelera (paper bin) or the German Papierkorb (same) or Mülleimer (rubbish bin), just what such things are called. Indeed it has reminiscences of poo and trash, there will be an etymological reason for the name. There sure is no story behind it. Until I read this today:
In 1884, Paris administrator Eugène Poubelle decreed that rubbish bins must be provided to apartment dwellers—not just one but several, to sort items for disposal or recycling. Paris bins became known as poubelles, a French name that has stuck. It wasn’t intended as a compliment. Trash bins, it was said, were a bureaucratic imposition that impinged upon the honest rag-and-bone trade.
There goes my John Lydon theory…
The “Athenia” was the first ship of WW2 torpedoed by German U-boats. 117 souls were lost (over 900 survived) off the coast of Ireland. It was sailing from Glasgow to Montreal. Among its cargo were 278 curling stones - destined for various points across Canada.
“On 4 September 1939, curling stone manufacturer Andrew Kay & Co. sent a cablegram to its sales representative in Toronto stating, “We now learn that the Athenia was this morning sunk off the coast of Scotland, and we regret that the finest consignment of curling stones that have ever yet left our factory has gone with it.” According to James Wyllie, secretary and director of Kays of Scotland (as the company is now known) in 2018, three bills of lading for this shipment included 48 pairs of Blue Hone Ailsa curling stones for the London, Ontario Curling Club, 41 pairs of Blue Hone Ailsa curling stones for the Toronto High Park Curling Club, and 50 pairs of Red Hone Ailsa curling stones for the Lindsay Curling Club. This is a total of 278 Andrew Kay & Co. Excelsior Ailsa curling stones with handles and cases weighing nearly six tons with a 1939 value of £585.12 (equivalent to £45,822 in 2023).” (Wikipedia)
At today’s prices of about $600 each, that’s a loss worth $166,800.
And only in about 200 meters of depth; potentially worth salvaging! 
That was my first thought but it’s probably a protected war grave. Another piece of trivia is that one woman who died in the sinking was the first Canadian to die in WWII.
The only cast member of The Brady Bunch to win an Emmy was Ann B. Davis, although it was not for TBB.
I’m vaguely familiar with the Athenia from the Old 97s song “Rollerkate Skinny”:
Wouldn’t be here if the Athenia hadn’t sunk
Or if dear old dad hadn’t gotten so drunk
IIRC, Rhett Miller’s grandparents were survivors who met each other in the aftermath of the sinking.
Today I learned that remotely operated vehicles, controlled via radio waves, go back as far as 1904.
Lots of additional fascinating technical history in the article.
Magician Jean-Eugene Robert-Houdin, regarded as the “inventor of the modern Magic Show” (and the guy Houdini got his stage name from), after he retired from the stage, started working on optical instruments and invented half a dozen different optical devices for measuring the pupil and imaging the retina.
Then he was called on by the French government to put on a magic show in Algeria to prevent a revolt. He did, and it worked.