h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

that all of algebra is hard (only most of it is)

that all of algebra is hard (a little of it is, but only if you're hungover)

Cockroaches are unclean is a vicious lie

The Great Wall of China cannot be seen from the moon . (Why isn't there a picture of it then?)and if you push the close the doors button on a lift it doesn't have anything to do with closing the doors and hammering the call button doesn't bring it any faster either.

continually pressing the traffic lights doesn't make it go faster either

gins and tonic, of course, instead of gin and tonics

That people who sound confident actually know what they're talking about.

That The Celery and his running mate, Ms Delorus Webjello, will not win the h2g2 Post presidential elections

That just because it smells good it will also taste good. (herbal tea, perfume, freshly mowed grass)

That dog slobber is unhygenic - Its more hygenic than ours.Apparently

You get drunk quicker if you drink your (say, beer) through a straw. I can't see it myself. 5 pints gets me regardless of how I drink it.

TTFN

Freddie

While I was away on holiday I finally remembered what I had always been meaning to add to this thread.

It is not correct that a cold shower will dampen sexual urges. Apparently the effect of cold water contracting the veins heightens the arousal and just makes you more randy.

Nor is it right that alcohol is a cure for being cold. Here again, the alcohol shrinks the blood vessels, which results in you feeling even colder. Sod that though, I'm still not going to stop having a drink when I'm cold. At least you can't feel it - or anything else - once you've had enough. Not even sex?

Another misconception or, more accurately, a misquote. "Ignorance is bliss." My mother-in-law uses that one as a reason why it's best not to know some things. The actual proverb is, "IF ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise."

I first came across this proverb in a book when I was about 8 years old. It was illustrated by a couple of pictures. The first showed a little girl happily playing with her doll, pretending it was her baby. The second showed the little girl in floods of tears after her big brother had ripped its head off to prove that it wasn't her baby. That made the point very effectively, and I've never forgotten the proverb.

I had that book too. Must be from about the fifties somewhen.

I don't know when the book was published, but some of the information in it came from before the 50s.

Another popular misconception, (it's one of my mother-in-law's, again, but I think it's common to people of her generation) is that when you come back from a holiday you'll have got darker. It doesn't matter where Richard and I go for our holidays, or what time of year, the first thing his mum says when we get back is, 'Well, you're not very brown!" I'm sure she'd say it if we spent winter in the Arctic, which has no sunshine at all!

That there is such a thing as "computer error".

But we_ know_ that programmers don't make mistakes

That programmers create bugs...99.9% of bugs occur at the specification / design stage and the other 1.7% are probably rounding errors

That beer makes you stupid.It actually makes it more efficient by killing off the slower brain cells.No,really.

That you should drink water when you are thirsty.

Actually, by the time you experiance thirst, you are already dehydrated, and should have had a drink a few hours ago.