Interesting Facts

Maybe the title of this should be boring people, as Ms Scott, an English teacher, has been struck off the teaching register in Scotland for two years after pupils and parents complained about her “boring” lessons. (She has been removed following a seven-day hearing in Edinburgh where it was reported that she had spent three lessons reading a novel to one class without allowing them to ask questions, set the same essay task - titled "what I did in activities week" - for several different year groups, and shown one class a clip of Jurassic Park before making them copy what she said about characterisation in relation to the film. Pupils at the school dubbed the lessons the "puni class" due to the disproportionate number of punishment exercises handed out. To be fair, her lesson plans sound very similar to the ones I had to sit through in English literature.) !Note - if you are struck off you are removed, from a position of power or responsibility after havin...

Dr Henry Heimlich, the surgeon who gave his name to the simple but dramatic procedure used to rescue people from choking, managed to save someone’s life using the technique himself for the first time since he invented it in 1974. (His technique, called the Heimlich manoeuvre, is used for dislodging food or objects caught in people’s throats, and has been credited with saving thousands of lives around the world: On noticing a fellow resident at the senior assisted living centre where he lives, choking on a piece of meat, Heimlich, a spritely 96-year-old, calmly stepped in. After her brush with death, the resident in question, 87-year-old Patty Ris, wrote Dr Heimlich a note, saying: "God put me in the seat next to you.")

When Queen Elizabeth was born she stood third in line of succession to the throne after Edward, Prince of Wales (later King Edward VIII), and her father, The Duke of York. (She has 9 royal thrones - 1 at the House of Lords, 2 at Westminster Abbey, and 6 in the throne room at Buckingham Palace. It was never expected that she would become Queen.) 90 pictures

Between the 8th and 14th January 2016, Justin Bieber became the first artist ever to hold the top 3 spots in the UK charts at the same time. (He took the number 1 spot with 'Love Yourself', at 2 it was 'Sorry' and 3 was 'What Do You Mean'. I'm sorry?  What do you mean he took all 3 spots? I guess that's what happens when you love yourself.)

15-year-old schoolboy Pranav Dhanawade, from the KC Gandhi High School, Kalyan, India, has become the first batsman to score 1000-plus runs in an innings in any form of cricket. (He reached 1000 runs in just 323 balls whilst batting against Arya Gurukul School in the Bhandari Cup (a tournament in India for under-16s). His score included 59 sixes and 129 fours, and his team declared the innings at 1465/3, which is also a world record, with Pranav unbeaten at 1009 runs. The previous record had stood for 116 years. Held by AEJ Collins since 1899 after he had struck an unbeaten 628 for Clark House against North Town House in the UK. I hope he's not a one-hit wonder.  Get it?  Oh never mind.)

Don't let your kids read this... The Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten announced the death of Santa in their obituary section. (Seemingly, Santa died  at the age of 227, on 3rd December in Nordkapp, Norways’s northernmost point. The funeral will be held at North Pole Chapel on 28th December. They have apologised for "an internal error", but I guess we will find out on Christmas morning.)

According to doctors, James Bond is a functioning alcoholic. (Doctors analysing the Ian Fleming novels say that 007 polishes off the equivalent of one and a half bottles of wine every day. Excluding the 36 days Bond was in prison, hospital or rehab, the spy downed 1,150 units of alcohol in 88 days, which works out at 92 units a week - about five vodka martinis a day and four times the recommended maximum intake for men in the UK. He is also a drink driver. He certainly mixes it up in the films too.  According to recent research Daniel Craig is the booziest Bond yet; knocking back around 20 units in the film. 

The character Alice, in Alice in Wonderland, was based on a real-life little girl named Alice Liddell.  Alice Lidell (CC) (She wasn't a blonde as illustrated in the books but a brunette.)

Michael Gove, beloved by teachers everywhere, has issued civil servants working under him in his new role as head of the Department of Justice, with detailed guidance on his idea of what constitutes good grammar. (The guidelines, entitled Ministerial Correspondence Preferences, tell officials to write “make sure” instead of “ensure” and to avoid using the word “impact” as a verb. He is also unhappy with the use of contractions, such as “doesn’t”, and the deployment of “yet” and “however” at the beginning of sentences. It also suggests that “the phrases best-placed and high-quality are joined with a dash, very few others are” and discourages unnecessary capitalisation and repetition. This is two years after he circulated “10 golden rules” to officials in the Department for Education, but it isn't the first time government officials have done this kind of thing: In 2012 the then environment secretary Owen Paterson issued a 10-point list which included a ban on his department’s ...

Clarence "Ducky" Nash, an American voice actor, was the voice of Disney's Donald Duck. (He provided Donald's distinctive voice for over 50 years, but he was also the original voice for Tom in Tom and Jerry.)

According to cognitive scientist, Guy Claxton, rubbers (erasers) are instruments of the devil and has called for them to be banned from classrooms. (Strong words, I hear you say, but his argument is that they encourage children to feel ashamed of their mistakes, and perpetuate a culture of shame about errors. "It’s a way of lying to the world, which says ‘I didn’t make a mistake. I got it right first time.’ That’s what happens when you can rub it out and replace it," he said. Now you know why you can't correct your posts in the forum!)

100-year-old Margaret Jacobs has celebrated her birthday on the wrong day for almost a century. (The mistake only came to light when the centenarian received a telegram for her hundredth birthday from the Queen. Mrs Jacobs, from Treuddyn, Flintshire, had been celebrating every April 24th, but her birth certificate says she was actually born four days later on April 28th. Mrs Jacobs' daughter, Olivia Santos, said: "We think when my grandfather went to register my mother's birth, and they put on the date of registration." So, really she's been celebrating the right day, and the Queen got it wrong.)

Lewis Carroll, best known as the British author of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, was the nom-de-plume of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. (A nom-de-plume is an assumed name used by a writer instead of their real name, aka a pen-name, not to be confused with the following:- nom-de-guerre: the name a person uses to engage in combat or some other activity or enterprise (such as gaming). pet name: a name that is used instead of someone's usual first name, usually to express fondness. nickname: a familiar or humorous name given to a person or thing instead of or as well as their real name.)

Jessie Gallan, who recently celebrated her 109th birthday in the UK, has put her long life down to plenty of porridge, and no men. Image - CC 3 - Source http://www.vectorgoods.com  (Jessie, who lives in Aberdeen, told a Daily Mail reporter: “My secret to a long life has been staying away from men. They're just more trouble than they're worth." She also made sure that she got plenty of exercise, and she still eats a bowl of porridge every morning. I guess Goldilocks was onto something.)

Libby Lane is the first female bishop to be consecrated by The Church of England. (She has been vicar of St Peter's Hale and St Elizabeth's Ashley, in Greater Manchester, since April 2007. Women have been able to become priests in the Church of England for 20 years. Next stop archbishop?)

A.K. Verma, an Indian civil servant, joined the state-run Central Public Works Department (CPWD) as an assistant executive engineer in 1980:  A public sector job in India is usually seen as a job for life. (Why does that make him interesting? Well, 10 years later, he went on leave, and never went back to work. People leave work all the time, so it's still not that interesting, but he managed to bunk off work for 24 years, his job was only terminated in 2015. Unfortunately for him, his pay was stopped in the 1990s. I wonder what he is doing now.)

In a poll conducted by GQ, Prince George was named as the 49th best dressed man. (The top 10 were:- Eddie Redmayne   Benedict Cumberbatch  Jamie Dornan  Alex Turner  Nick Grimshaw  Idris Elba The Prince of Wales Douglas Booth  David Gandy  David Furnish Dear GQ, please change the rules to only include men who actually dress themselves.)

Renowned physicist, Professor Stephen Hawking, has warned that, quote: "The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race," (His main worry is that super-smart machines could leave humans floundering, and they could find human affairs totally unimportant, and may even begin to view humanity as a hindrance. Before you dismiss this as science fiction, Google has set up an ethics board to oversee its work in artificial intelligence. It reminds me of this joke: Artificial Intelligence stands no chance against Natural Stupidity.)

For three months, John McArthur has spent two hours each weekday morning parading outside LAMH Recycle in Motherwell, Scotland, wearing a placard reading: “Say no to slave labour”. (Why? Well, after the organisation "let him go" from a temporary job, he was ordered by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to work for the same firm for six months without pay, in order to continue receiving unemployment benefit. Welcome to Britain 2014.)

Alice Glaston, is the youngest person ever hung in England. (She was hung from the gallows tree at Wenlock Edge in Shropshire, in 1545. She was just 11 years old. Legend has it that her bones were later discovered and taken to a limekiln to be secretly burned. Alice became part of the lime used in mortar, whitewash and spread on the fields, and so remains a constant presence in this landscape. There is a note in the parish register of Sir Thomas Butler, vicar of Much Wenlock in Shropshire: Here was buried John Dod of the parish of Little Wenlock, who was hanged here, as also Alice Glaston, 11 yrs of age, of the parish of Little Wenlock, and Wm. Harper, a tailor. A note slightly further down the page reads: Three Convicts buried one a girl of 11 years old. I wonder if they realised how history would judge them.) Source