Topical Tens: Top Facts

Presenting the favourite 120 things I learned from researching this blog during 2024:

January

The largest moving object in the average home is the garage Door.
The first Supermarket in the world was called Piggly Wiggly.
There is such a thing as a volcano which spews ice instead of magma. Needless to say, it’s not on Earth, but on Enceladus, one of Saturn’s moons.
The ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica are so big that they affect the force of gravity exerted by the Earth.
In 1976, Muhammad Ali recorded The Adventures of Ali and His Gang vs. Mr. Tooth Decay, an album made to warn children about consuming too much sugar.
One of the suggested names for the village in The Archers was Little Twittington, but Ambridge was chosen in the end.
In Radio 4’s The Archers, the sound of a farm gate closing is actually an ironing board being collapsed swiftly. They’ve been using the same one since the 1950s.
Hercule Poirot preferred to keep a bank balance of exactly 444 pounds, 4 shillings, and 4 pence.
The Gilbert and Sullivan operetta Ruddigore was almost re-named Robin and Richard were two Pretty Men.
You can get Haggis flavoured crisps and ice cream.

February

Water voles must eat 80% of their body weight every day to survive.
The first Knitting union was founded in Paris in 1527 and it was strictly men only.
Sending knitting patterns abroad was banned by the Office of Censorship during the second world war because they could contain coded messages. Knitting itself was used as a code by the Belgian resistance. Women of a certain age whose windows overlooked railway lines were recruited to knit a code for the trains that passed by the window. A purl stitch meant one kind of train, a drop stitch another.
A few months before he died, Babe Ruth attended a ceremony at Yale where he donated a copy of his autobiography, handing it to the then captain of Yale’s baseball team. The young man in question was future president George H. W. Bush.
There is a Light bulb at the Livermore/Pleasanton Fire Department in California which has been in use since 1901. It has been burning for over 120 years and is hardly ever turned off. In 2001, the bulb's 100th birthday was celebrated with a community barbecue and live music.
Georges Simenon, creator of Maigret, would weigh himself before he started writing a new novel, and again when he’d finished, so he could ascertain just how much writing each one had cost in sweat. He reckoned that writing a book cost him one-and-a-half litres.
Cupid has several different types of arrow in his quiver. Gold, the familiar ones which make people fall hopelessly in love, but also Lead ones, which make people feel repulsion to another person. Some say there are Silver arrows, which cause a temporary crush.
Galileo wasn’t keen on the university dress code for teachers and often refused to wear the required formal robes, for which his pay would be docked.
In 1835, New York Magazine came up with the reason why Toast always lands Butter side down. When a slice of toast slips out of someone’s hand it will be at an angle. With less than six feet to the ground, it will only have time to do a half turn before hitting the floor.
Fats Domino had eight children and all their names began with the letter A – Antoine III, Anatole, Andre, Antonio, Antoinette, Andrea, Anola, and Adonica.

March

There’s a specific name for botanists who study Elm trees: "pteleologists", from the Greek word for elm.
Sharks are the only fish with eyelids, therefore the only fish that can blink.
Silly Putty mixed with graphene can be used as a pressure sensor sensitive enough to measure the footprints of a Spider walking over it.
Irish police were once given a "britches allowance" to cover any damage done to their trousers while chasing moonshiners in remote country areas.
Ducks being walked long distances to market in medieval times were given special shoes to protect their feet.
In the early 19^th century, more men were deployed fighting Luddites in England than were fighting Napoleon in Spain.
During the second world war, the resistance used modified Chanel No 5 bottles to carry secret messages, literally under the noses of the German occupiers. They didn’t suspect a well dressed woman carrying a luxury accessory.
After Joan Crawford died, it was discovered she’d secretly paid the medical bills of hundreds of people who couldn’t afford them.
Actress Gloria Swanson would always sleep with her head pointing due north. She would have hotel rooms rearranged to accommodate this.
In the 19^th century, a science magazine suggested that Lemmings threw themselves into the sea because they were seeking the lost continent of Lemuria.

April

Hugh Hefner never owned the Playboy Mansion. It technically belonged to Playboy Enterprises, and they leased it to him for $100 a year.
If you lose your piece of Bread in a Fondue pot, it’s customary to pay a penalty, which could be buying a round of drinks, kissing everyone in the room or stripping naked and running in the snow.
The Victorians believed wearing a Corset would help keep a woman’s Kidneys warm.
Woodlice are technically marsupials. A female woodlouse keeps fertilised eggs in a marsupium, or pouch, on the underside of her body.
Pyjamas with feet started as adult bed wear when people started sewing Socks onto the bottom of the legs to stop bedbugs biting their feet.
Daffy Duck had a 1991 hit record in the UK with an album called Party Zone.
In 1963, The Rolling Stones starred in an advert for Rice Krispies.
In his later years, the philosopher Immanuel Kant kept such a strictly ordered routine that his neighbours could set their clocks by his daily walks.
The letter combination “ough” can be pronounced in 10 different ways in English, as in this sentence: “A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed.”
When Terry Pratchett was knighted in 2009, he made himself a ceremonial sword from Iron deposits from near his home and fragments of a Meteorite.

May

One historical method of cleaning chimneys was to tie a rope around a goose’s neck and force it to fly up the chimney.
Leopard’s spots are actually known as rosettes because they’re shaped like Roses.
The airship Hindenberg had a smoking room.
Liberace held a patent for a Toilet that would fold away into the bathroom wall.
The S in Harry S Truman doesn’t actually stand for anything.
During WWII, Audrey Hepburn worked for the Dutch Resistance. She was recruited thanks to her fluency in English. She was given the task of bringing food to British and American pilots and telling them where to go to get help.
Ozzy Osbourne played a heavy metal version of Jailhouse Rock in 1987 when he did a tour of prisons.
In America, Salsa has been officially designated a vegetable by the Department of Agriculture, so it counts towards your five a day.
The novel Dracula may have been inspired by a dream Bram Stoker had after eating dodgy seafood.
A doctor who examined Voice actor Mel Blanc's throat found that he possessed unusually thick, powerful vocal cords, which gave him an exceptional range, not unlike those of opera singer Enrico Caruso.

June

Shopping trolleys weren’t very popular when first invented. Men were too proud to admit they’d rather not lug round a heavy basket while women thought they were too much like baby carriages.
Almost every major city has one or more companies whose sole business is to retrieve and return abandoned shopping trolleys to their rightful owners for a small fee.
John Wesley wrote a medical guide for ordinary people in which he advised people to take dried toad pills for asthma and to cuddle a puppy to cure stomach ache.
According to London police, eating hot Sausage rolls between 11pm and 5am in Leicester Square might cause crime and disorder. At least, that was the reason the Met Police gave for turning down Greggs’s application for a 24/7 hot food trading licence in 2022.
Fossils have been found of Dragonflies with wingspans of up to two feet.
The film Jurassic Park is 127 minutes long. The Dinosaurs only appear in fifteen minutes of it.
A group of Goldfish is known as “a troubling,” not a school.
The term "Swiss Army knife" was coined by American soldiers in World War II because they couldn’t pronounce the original German name "Offiziersmesser", meaning "officer’s knife".
There is a museum in Valréas called Musee Du Cartonnage et de Imprimerie, which is basically a museum dedicated to Cardboard boxes.
The CIA once hatched a plot to assassinate Cuban President Fidel Castro with an exploding conch shell. They knew a spot where Castro liked to go diving and planned to place the booby-trapped shell on a Coral reef for him to find.

July

Janet Leigh developed a lifelong phobia of showers after watching herself in the Psycho shower scene.
Horse traders used to stick a slice of Ginger up a horse’s bum, which would fool the customer into thinking it was livelier.
The inventor of the Foghorn was inspired by hearing his daughter play the Piano on a foggy night.
It has been suggested that James Bond was partly inspired by Elizabeth I’s astrologer and spy, John Dee.
The most used Emoji is ‘Face With Tears of Joy’.
The first book written entirely using emojis is called Emoji Dick, and is a translation of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick.
After Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin reported that sleeping on the floor of the lunar module was uncomfortable and cold, subsequent missions provided Hammocks.
Roman soldiers put Mugwort in their sandals to protect their feet against fatigue and cramps.
George Bernard Shaw had a special writing hut built in his garden which had a mechanism by which he could rotate it in order to get the best of the light throughout the day.
The telephone operator who delivered the Singing telegram was called Lucille Lipps.

August

Fennel was believed to give courage to warriors before battle.
Not one single scene of the movie Mary Poppins was filmed in London.
The whistling of the animatronic Robin in Mary Poppins was provided by Julie Andrews.
One in 20 of Earth’s population live in an area at risk of volcanic activity.
The first take of the Singin' in the Rain iconic scene was ruined because it was a hot day and people in the neighbourhood using their sprinklers reduced the water pressure to a dribble.
In Elizabethan times, opening a bottle with a Message in it could have got you in big trouble. Queen Elizabeth I allegedly believed that spies used this method to communicate. She is said to have created an official position of "Uncorker of Ocean Bottles". Anyone other than the holder of that title could face the death penalty for opening a bottled message.
Due to the fact that it is a very fine organic powder, Custard powder is explosive.
The indentation on the surface of a Brick is called a frog. Nobody knows why it’s called that, or even what it is for. There is debate among bricklayers as to whether bricks should be laid frog up or frog down.
In 1799, the Light Brigade was called to Ascot Racecourse from Windsor Castle when an argument over a bet developed into a full-scale riot.
Duran Duran recorded the song A View to a Kill for the 1985 movie starring Roger Moore. The story goes that John Taylor, a Bond fan, got a bit tipsy at a party where producer Cubby Broccoli was also a guest. Taylor went up to him and asked "When are you going to get someone decent to do one of your theme songs?"

September

There’s a tiny science lab underneath The Monument in London, accessible through a trapdoor in the ticket office. It was never used much because of interference from traffic in the area.
The local Residents' Association committee in the series George and Mildred is comprised of Mr and Mrs Morecambe and Miss Wise.
As a child, Buddy Holly appeared in a talent show with his brothers playing a Violin. However, he couldn’t actually play the instrument so his older brother greased the bow so it wouldn’t make a sound. The brothers won the contest.
Only two cities have hosted finals for the FIFA World Cup, Cricket World Cup and IRB Rugby World Cup. London and Johannesburg.
Scooby Doo has an ancestor called Yankee Doodle Doo, and another called Great-Grandpa Scooby, who is a ghost.
Roman soldiers were fed a type of porridge made from Chestnuts before heading into battle.
Pirates most likely didn’t wear eye patches because they were missing an eye, but rather so that one eye was always adjusted to darkness so they could see immediately when they went below deck.
A job requirement for gardeners at Saint Michael's Mount in Cornwall is the ability to abseil.
The only person not to join in with the National Anthem at the coronation of King Charles III was the king himself, as the song is being sung to him.
It takes seven years to fully qualify as a BSL interpreter.

October

The Flute requires more breath to play than any other instrument, including the Tuba.
There wasn’t enough water at Versailles to keep the fountains running all the time, so the gardeners devised a secret whistling code to warn each other when the king was walking in the gardens, so that as he approached, the fountains could be turned on and off again when he’d passed by, allowing him to think it was all working perfectly.
Having used mouthwash recently can skew the results of a Breathalyser, as can a passionate Kiss with a person who is drunk.
The pilot of a doomed B-29 in China saved his Parachute and later proposed to his girlfriend with the words, “I’d like to have you make a wedding dress out of my parachute. It saved my life.” She said Yes.
There has been a study published in a medical journal which suggests that charity parachute jumpers in the UK injure themselves so frequently that, for every £1 they raise for charity, they cost the NHS £13.75.
A 19^th century lady traveller named Ida Pfeiffer once encountered a native who jumped out at her brandishing a knife. She fought him off with an Umbrella and a pocket knife until she was rescued by two riders who just happened to be passing by. The umbrella was broken, and she kept the broken off handle as a trophy.
The Romans believed the poet Virgil had magical powers, including carving out his tomb from the rocks near Naples with his gaze alone.
On 18 April 1930 a BBC newsreader announced, “Good evening, Today is Good Friday. There is no news.” The BBC went on to play piano music for 15 minutes.
Perry Como’s 1941 hit Deep in the Heart of Texas was banned by the BBC, not because the lyrics were rude, but because people would clap along with the tune. The problem was that people often listened to the radio while they worked, and the BBC was afraid people in bomb factories might drop a bomb while clapping along.
William Herschel came up with a theory that there was a causal link between sunspot activity and the price of wheat in England. Needless to say, subsequent studies have failed to find any connection between the two at all.

November

Vitamin K was first discovered during a study of cholesterol deficiency in Chickens.
Süleyman the Magnificent is said to have been responsible for the spread of Tulips around Europe.
The teenage Billy Graham was once barred from a youth group for being "too worldly".
According to legend, one of the castles in Naples has a magical egg with protective powers buried secretly somewhere in its grounds.
Xavier Roberts, creator of Cabbage Patch Kids, had one himself which he called Otis Lee. He took it everywhere with him, and even made it chairman of the board.
Before it was assigned the name Roentgenium, element 111 was given a temporary name, unununium, with a provisional chemical symbol of Uuu.
Paul Simon has suggested that the Simon and Garfunkel hit Cecilia is about Saint Cecilia, patron saint of Music.
One shot of espresso requires 50 Coffee beans.
In Medieval times freckles were considered evidence that a person was a witch.
When William Blake first met the man his parents wanted him to be an apprentice for, he refused, saying “I do not like the man’s face: it looks as if he will live to be hanged!” Eleven years later, the man was indeed hanged, for forgery.

December

Detachable shirt collars were invented by a housewife who hated doing laundry. Hannah Montague was a housewife in New York who didn’t see why she should wash an entire shirt when only the collar was really dirty.
The oldest living tree is a Spruce. It is called Old Tjikko and is located in Sweden. The tree is thought to be 9,550 years old. Leif Kullman, the geologist who discovered this tree, named it after his dog.
In India and Burma, it is actually possible to hold back forces of soldiers or police with a washing line of sarongs. Men there believe that passing under such a line would emasculate them, so they’ll avoid doing so.
The Christmas classic Fairytale of New York allegedly came about due to a bet. Pogues producer Elvis Costello bet Shane MacGowan and co-writer Jem Finer, the band’s banjoist, that they couldn’t come up with a Christmas record that wasn’t slushy.
The lyrics of Fairytale of New York go “The boys of the NYPD choir still singing Galway Bay.” However, there is no such thing as the NYPD choir. The Irish pipe band which featured on the music video didn’t know Galway Bay.
In some parts of Japan, police officers are required to hold at least a Shodan (black belt) in Aikido.
13% of brides serve cupcakes at their wedding instead of a traditional wedding cake.
Cork is used in the film industry to create dramatic explosions. The flying debris is often fragments of cork, which is lightweight and safer than most materials.
The Bible doesn’t mention any animals being present at the Nativity. Nor would the shepherds and wise men have been there at the same time.
Tsunamis can travel across the ocean as fast as 500 miles (805 kilometres an hour), nearly the same speed as a jet plane.

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