Fairly Useless Facts
- by Bill the Butcher
- Posted on 18 October, 2012
By: Bill The Butcher
Back in college, I came across a factoid that says that 40,000 parasites, 250 species of bacteria, 0.7 grams of protein, 0.45 grams of fat, and 0.19 grams of “other organic substances” – like food debris – are exchanged during a single deep mouth-to-mouth kiss.
So why is this an absolutely useless fact?
Well, you aren’t going to stop kissing just because you read this, are you?
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Kind of explains the fascination some people have for computer games.
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I’m a coffee lover, but there are limits I wouldn’t cross.
The world’s most expensive coffee is Kopi Luwak, made from coffee beans eaten and excreted whole by palm civets in Indonesia. After the civet has obligingly done its job, the bean allegedly emerges intact and one doesn’t even have to scrabble for it in dung; so I wonder if the civet eats it just for the benefit of Japanese connoisseurs.
It’s supposed to have a unique musty flavour and that is attributed to its journey through the civet.
Thanks, but I’ll stick to instant, or cappuccino if I’m feeling gourmetish.
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Back in the Middle Ages, if you were a candidate for a civil servant’s post in China (if you wanted to be a Mandarin, that is) you had to pass a pretty stiff examination. Obviously, since a mandarin had it all – pay, perks, respect – there was a lot of competition and lots of chances for corruption.
The Chinese were well aware of this and in order to minimise the chances of examiners being bribed or otherwise induced to favour certain candidates they would not just use the equivalent of roll numbers in order to hide the candidates’ identities – someone would actually copy the candidate’s answers so the examiner couldn’t even recognise the candidate by his handwriting.
Of course, if they tried something like that in India these days the answer copiers would be able to retire in great luxury after a year on the job.
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There’s an old saw that lighting three cigarettes from the same matchstick is unlucky.
This one dated back to the trenches of World War One. At night, in the blacked out trenches, the flame of a match lighting a cigarette would draw the attention of an enemy sniper; the flame lighting another would give him a chance to take aim; and the third guy lighting up from the same match would end up stopping the sniper’s bullet, the stupid git.
Well, today I doubt one would find three smokers getting together too often, and if they do I think lung cancer is a greater threat than bad luck, but still.
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We have those functionless buttons on our coat sleeves as a relic of military uniforms of the early nineteenth century.
Why did military uniforms of the early nineteenth century have sleeve buttons?
Because Napoleon wanted to stop his soldiers wiping their noses on their sleeves, a most disgusting habit, you’ll agree. Big hard brass buttons would discourage the most runny of noses.
I guess we ought to be grateful he did not try to stop them scratching their genitals as well.
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In the days of sail, one punishment for delinquent sailors was keel-hauling: to be thrown off the bow of the ship, a rope tied to each arm, and dragged along the bottom (keel) of the ship till he was pulled back aboard at the stern. Since the bottoms of the ships of those days were usually crusted withbarnacles, it was not exactly comfortable for the sailor, not to speak of the sensation – and danger – of drowning.
I think I’d prefer to be tied to the mast and whipped.
(And, oh : it isn’t practicable to throw a certain someone of Mission Accomplished fame off the bow of an aircraft carrier and drag him back along the hull, more’s the pity.)
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The largest known volcano, and the highest known mountain, is Olympus Mons on Mars. It’s a giant shield volcano about the size of one of the American midwest states (I forget which, but I think it is Utah) in area and three times the height of Chomolungma (“Mount Everest”). This means of course that the slopes are very gentle and this is more like an upturned saucer than a mountain. It’s so high because of Mars’ low gravity.
Another demotion of Earth from the favoured centre of the Universe.
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In ancient Athens, anyone who could give sufficient cause for wanting to end his or her own life was handed a cup of hemlock by the public magistrate.

Bill The Butcher- Brings the fun-times to Friday this week with Fairly Useless Facts.
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Now those are some fairly useless facts I could live with. In fact, your presentation of them have made my day. If I should ever don a helmet for urban warfare, I’ll be sure to burn some incense in it first, just as a matter of courtesy.
Bill, you could definitely do stand-up comedy. This was really funny.