Interesting Facts

According to research company Mintel, Britons spend around £ 510 million on Mother's Day gifts in 2015, but only £ 350 million on Father's Day gifts. (Poor dads!)

William Shakespeare was probably born on April 23rd, and he died on this day in 1616, 400 years ago. It is also St George's Day in England, and according to the Arden Shakespeare Miscellany, St George is mentioned 16 times in his plays. (The most famous mention is in Henry V: "Cry 'God' for Harry! England and Saint George!") Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; Or close the wall up with our English dead. In peace there's nothing so becomes a man As modest stillness and humility: But when the blast of war blows in our ears, Then imitate the action of the tiger; Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage; Then lend the eye a terrible aspect; Let it pry through the portage of the head Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it As fearfully as doth a galled rock O'erhang and jutty his confounded base, Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean. Now set the teeth an...

According to research company Mintel, in the UK sons spend more on their mothers on Mother's Day than daughters.  Over 40% more! (Men spend an average of 41.15 on Mother's Day gift, whilst women send just 28.97. Sons spend more on flowers for their mums than they do for their partners on Valentine's Day. The only catch to all this benficance is, they have to remember.  Only 57% of men remembered to buy a gift, compared with 62% of women. In addition 24% of men chose a present at the last minute, compared with just 18% of women.  Guys, if you are reading this now, if you hurry you might find a garage open. I wonder what Laika has got me.) Source

National Offer Day (around the beginning of March) is when parents across England are told by their Local Authority whether their children will be offered a place in their first choice secondary school. (It is a fraught time for parents with children who are in their final year of primary school. In 2015 84.2% of children were offered a place at their first choice school, but that means quite a few missed out. Increasingly parents whose kids don't get their first choice are spending thousands of pounds to try and secure a place in their chosen school, in what is becoming an increasingly competitive environment.) Source

The 5th of January is Fat Cat Tuesday in the UK, which is when, according to campaign group the High Pay Center, top bosses in the UK will have earned more money by the end of this day than the average worker will do in a year. (The High Pay Centre estimates that chief executives in the UK, presuming they work a 12-hour day and take few holidays, earn an average hourly pay rate of £1,260 an hour.  Using this rate, they only need 22 hours, which means, assuming they started work on 4th January, they will only need to work until this afternoon, to reach the median full-time employee salary in the UK. They would only need to wake up and switch on the coffee machine to reach my pay rate.) #FatCatTuesday pic.twitter.com/sNlW4p8xZ8 — Left Unity (@LeftUnityUK) January 5, 2016

In the 17th century, in Boston USA, the Puritan PTB banned Christmas for over two decades: from 1659 until 1681. (It was illegal to observe Christmas by taking the day off from work, feasting or celebrating in any other way, and anyone caught doing so was fined five shillings, which was a lot of money back then. The ban was finally lifted in 1681, but many Puritans continued to rally against the holiday, some would even march through the streets on Christmas Eve shouting, "No Christmas! No Christmas!"   In 1870, Ulysses S. Grant was the first president to declare Christmas a national holiday, but even then some schools stayed open on Christmas day until as late as 1870, with harsh punishments for any children who bunked off. I knew that Cromwell banned Christmas in the UK in the 1640s, but seemingly 8 countries have done so, and not just in the past. It is currently banned in 3 other countries, and "discouraged" in several others.  Suffice to say I...

2015 will be one second longer than a normal year. (The Paris Observatory, in France has said that 30 June 2015 will be one second longer, as what is called a "leap second" is added to the day to account for discrepancies between Earth time and atomic time, due to the slowing rotation of the Earth. This will be the 26th leap second to be added since 1972, and the extra second will be added at 11:59:60pm UTC on 30 June, bringing the total number of seconds for 2015 up to 31,536,001. What will you do with your extra second?)

Today is Towel Day. (Douglas Adams, creator of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, gave the world some excellent advice when he wrote, "Never go anywhere without your towel". On May 14, 2001, one of his fans, D. Clyde Williamson, posted a tribute to Mr. Adams including a proposal that a date two weeks after his passing should be observed as Towel Day. May 25th continues to be observed annually as Towel Day as an ongoing tribute to Mr Adams. To celebrate the day, give you towels the day off, and every time someone asks you a question, give them a wise and knowing look and answer "42". And never forget that just because you know the answer, doesn't mean you understand the question. When you can't use "42" fruitfully, try another famous line from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy or a Douglas Adams' quote instead, such as: "Mostly harmless" "Life, the Universe, and Everything" "Almo...

2014 has been designated by the UN as the following:- The International Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian People The International Year of Small Island Developing States The International Year of Crystallography The International Year of Family Farming So, if you are a family farmer, with an interest in crystallography, and living in Palestine or on a small island developing state.  This is your year!

Friday 4th January 2013 was a popular day to get married in China. (Seemingly the date was booked well in advance by thousands of couples who hope that marrying on this date would bring them lasting romance. Why? Well according to Daniel from the forum, if you say 4 January 2013 it sounds similar to the phrase "I will love you all my life". The day has been named "nicknamed "love you forever day". I wonder if anyone will keep track of the couples who got hitched on this day and see if they do love each other for ever.  The romantic side of me hopes that they do.)

Thousands of people on Twitter and Facebook observed the two-minute silence on Remembrance Sunday by not tweeting. (A campaign was run by the Royal British Legion to involve social media in the act of respect for the fallen. Called Thunderclap, people authorised their Twitter and Facebook accounts to send the tweet or message that read: 'I'll be remembering the fallen at 11 o'clock #2MinuteSilence #LestWeForget at 9am on Sunday November 11.)

People born on February 29th are called "leaplings" or "leapers". (The poet Lord Byron was a leapling as was the rapper Ja Rule. Just imagine, you only get a birthday party once every 4 years, but you're quarter the age of the rest of us, in fact Gilbert & Sullivan's Pirates of Penzance the plot revolved around Frederic's discovery that, because he is a leapling, he must remain apprenticed to pirates and serve another 63 years before he can join Mabel, his one true love.)

In Anglo Saxon times, the second month of the year, corresponding roughly with the Roman (and modern) month of February, was called Solmonath. (‘Monath’ is the Old English word for a month, and the direct ancestor of our modern English word ‘month’. ‘Sol’ is the Old English word for ‘mud’, so Solmonath meant ‘Mud Month’, which is very appropriate given the British weather at this time of year.  According to Dictionary.com a lesser-used term was Kale-monath, which meant “cabbage month.”  I guess that reflected the wonderful English cuisine of the time.)

Today is Blue Monday, or is it? (In the UK Blue Monday is the most depressing day of the year, which usually falls on the third Monday of the year or the Monday of the last full week of January, but this year we get it early. In 2012, Blue Monday could fall on January 23rd which is the last full week of January, or on January 16th the third Monday of the year. Maybe this means we will get two this year - Whoopee!)

You may have read somewhere on the net that October 2010 had 5 Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, which is true, but these hoax posts also said that this happens only once every 823 years, which is not true. (In a 31-day month, if the month starts with a Friday-Saturday-Sunday, it will have a total of 5 Fridays, 5 Saturdays, and 5 Sundays, and if it starts with a Sunday-Monday-Tuesday, it will have a total of 5 Sundays, 5 Mondays, and 5 Tuesdays.  So these kinds of months come around relatively frequently, in fact we only have to wait till July 2011 for another month with 5 Fridays, 5 Saturdays, and 5 Sundays.  I only mention this because I got an email telling me this, and before I posted it as an interesting fact I researched it and found out it's not true.) Thanks to About.com and Geekosystem.com for debunking this myth.

At 12.34pm and 56.7 seconds today, when you add the date to the end 8.9.10. a rare numerical phenomenon was formed when the time and date read 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. (It's the first "Sequential Day" in more than 20 years. A great way to practise your numbers.)

In the UK the first sell-by dates went onto milk and cream products in the 1950s. (Marks and Spencer started using them to give people confidence in the products in their chilled cabinets. People were used to finding milk and cream on their doorstep every morning, because it was traditionally delivered by the milkman.) Source: The BBC

2009 has been designated as the International Year of Astronomy and the International Year of Natural Fibres. (So, cotton in space anyone? Happy New Year)

In 1928 an act was passed in Parliament to fix "Easter Day" as the first Sunday after the second Saturday in April. (It has never come into force though. So, in Britain Easter is taken to be the first Sunday after the full moon that follows the (northern hemisphere) spring equinox. Easy once you know how!)

July 7, 2007 was considered the perfect date for a wedding. (7-7-7, besides looking good on the invitations, getting hitched on the seventh day of the seventh month of the seventh year is considered lucky. The Ritz Carlton Hotel in New York offered a special July 7th wedding package. It featured a reception for 77, a seven-tier wedding cake, seven Tiffany diamonds for the bride, and a seven-night honeymoon at any Ritz in the world -- for $77,777. I just want to look at the figures in a few years, how many divorces, separations etc after the seven year itch? We'll just have to wait and see I guess.) Listen Here.