Fascinating Facts and Trivia

If you pour a handful of salt into a glass of water, the water level will actually go down rather than overflowing the glass.

Similarly, If you mix half a litre of alcohol and half a litre of water, the total volume of the liquid will be less than 1 litre.

There are around 138 Egyptian Pyramids. Some of them are huge, the largest is the Pyramid of Khufu, also called The Great Pyramid Of Giza. When it was first built it was over 480 feet tall!. It was the tallest man-made structure for over 3800 years and is one of the Seven Wonders Of The World. It's estimated that this Pyramid was made from 2.3 million blocks of rock, weighing 5.9 million tons.


The Guinness World Record for the most expensive pie ever sold goes to The Fence Gate Inn in Lancashire, which sold it's pie for £8195 or £1024 per slice to eight guests on November 14th 2005. It was made from £500 worth of Japanese Wagyu Beef Fillet, Chinese Matsutake Mushrooms (which are so precious, they're harvested under guard), Winter Black Truffles, French Bluefoot Mushrooms (sold at £200 for 1kg), gravy made from two bottles of Vintage 1982 Chateau Mouton Rothschild wine, topped with edible gold leaf.

There's a pub in Ireland that opened in the year 900 AD and is still operational, it's named "Seans Bar". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sean%27s_Bar

Some egg trivia:

The way to test an egg to see if it is fresh is take a tall glass and drop the egg carefully into the water. If it sinks then it is fine, but it if floats it is probably a good idea to chuck it.

Another way to tell if an egg is hard-boiled or raw is to try and spin it. If it spins and stop immediately it is fresh egg and not cooked, if it spins and continues spinning for a long time it is a hard-boiled egg or at least cooked.

A way to stop an egg cracking when boiling is to cover it with a bit of salt although this doesn't always work.

Simplest way to crack open a boiled egg is tap it with the back of a teaspoon three times then go in at the side to separate the top(being careful not to burn your fingers of course) but the other way is just as good; take a flat knife and attack the side of it in one quick swipe.

Today was the first all-colour newspaper created by Eddie Shah.

Stephanie Rahn was the first ever Page 3 girl to feature on page 3 of The Sun.

Vivian Neves appeared naked(tastefully posed) in an advert for gardening tools in The Times. Years later her daughter Kelly recreated it for The Sun.

The Daily Star was the first newspaper to have all colour pin-up pictures of their models.

Samantha Fox, Maria Whittaker and Linda Lusardi all made it big thanks to their appearances in newspapers.

Natalie Banus-Jay and Linsey Dawn McKenzie were featured inside the Sun/Sport before they went topless on their sixteenth birthdays, after asking its readers whether they should be bared topless(silly question back then)

Claire Short, a Labour minister mounted a campaign against The Sun to get rid of Page 3. Later unfortunately she succeeded and also was instrumental in mobilising women to go into WHSmith's etc and getting top-shelf magazines like M*yf*ir and P*house removed. (Interfering bloody busybody)

When filming a comedy programme for the BBC in the 1970's veteran comedian Charlie Drake was nearly killed. He was supposed to be pulled through a library bookcase and then lobbed out a window. Someone accidentally nailed the breakaway shelves down and so when he was pulled through the section that was supposed to collapse he was immediately knocked unconscious but carried on with the stunt. When he was thrown out of the window(a crash mat obviously there) someone realised he wasn't well and he was rushed to the hospital. His co-stars had no idea what had happened. He made a full recovery later. What a trouper!

The night that Tommy Cooper, the very brilliant comedian and magician has never been re-shown on television. I watched that night when it was Live From Her Majesty's. His routine was very clever. He would come on and stand near the curtains and wearing this long kaftan-like cloak proceed to produce impossible objects like a bucket, ladder etc from underneath. The gag was supposed to end with Jimmy Tarbuck's head appearing between his legs from behind the curtain. The bucket appeared and then Tommy suddenly sank to the floor, with the audience in fits of laughter. I'd seen this routine before and I suddenly realised that this wasn't part of the act. Next second the curtain comes down and they go to a commercial break. When they came back no-one explained what happened. It was only later announced that he had collasped from a heart attack, taken to hospital but died.

Eric Morecambe was another comedian that literally died on stage. He had been doing a song and dance routine and Q&A with the audience together with his friend and fellow comedian Stan Stennet. He got up from his chat, took the applause and then as he reached the wings collapsed.

The show where Tommy Cooper died is unfortunately available to watch on YouTube but I wouldn’t recommend watching it. I found it to be very disturbing viewing to put it mildly..after which I put in a complaint to YouTube asking for the vid to be taken down. Sadly they took no notice.

Sid James the Carry On star also passed away on stage at the Sunderland Empire in 1976. There is a story that Les Dawson was due to perform at the venue some years later but it is said that Les saw the ghost of Sid James in his dressing room and was so upset by what he had witnessed that he not only immediately left the venue but subsequently refused to ever return there. In addition, he also refused to ever talk about what he had experienced.

Yes it is disturbing and there have only ever been still photos seen so you were right to complain - we should remember him as he was, not what happened to him that fateful night. I'd forgotten about Sid but didn't know that Les Dawson story, so thanks for that.

In Japan, over 200 flavours of Kit Kat have been introduced since 2000, including Cucumber, Ginger Ale, Soy Sauce, Wasabi, Green Tea and Lemon Vinegar.

Think I'd stick to traditional but the Orange one's not bad and the dark chocolate one is good as an alternative. Roald Dahl, who wrote Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was an expert in chocolate and could tell the brand of any chocolate and when it first appeared.

Chocolate for the poor people was once adulterated(a bit like bread) with fine brick dust, plaster of Paris, something called nux vomica and crushed seashells. Later in the 1800's some people got suspicious and investigated this and finally an act was brought in to make it illegal to add anything dangerous to chocolate. To help workers at Terry's of York the owner Rowntree built special villages and provided all sorts of amenities to make their lives easier. Cadbury did the same for their workers.

Most chocolate makers were Quakers, very religious men and one woman took their worshipful company on and after seven years won her fight-her name was Mary Tuke and chocolate to begin with was drunk and was supposed to have healing properties.There was an Egg chocolate drink and wine chocolate to drink too. It was only much later that the first chocolate bar appeared.

A box of chocolates would set you back 14 shillings - now the average worker would earn 10 shillings so a box of chocolates was really for the richer person -also it was seen as a wedding proposal because chocolate back then contained symbols of love including the fillings used like black cherry. Women were told never to accept chocolates from strangers because of this.

(12-02-2019 13:20 )Skyline Wrote:  In Japan, over 200 flavours of Kit Kat have been introduced since 2000, including Cucumber, Ginger Ale, Soy Sauce, Wasabi, Green Tea and Lemon Vinegar.

That's almost heresy!!!

A Kit-Kat is a Kit-Kat... end of...!!

Unless it's Kit-Kat Chunky!

^ ...I know and there are some very worrying flavours there