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

Also Obi-Wan Kenobi was named after an OB-van. That stands for Outside Broadcasting.

According to the original Bell Labs patent (1973), on a telephone, the # symbol is called an octothorpe. The * is a sextile. (n.b. on a phone it has 6 points, not 5.)

Darth Vader is the Stig's uncle.

The only team in the FIFA World Cup 2010 in South Africa to be unbeaten in the tournament was....


















































New Zealand!

Scotland were the only unbeaten team in 1974. They went on goal difference to Brazil and Yugoslavia after all three drew with each other and beat Zaire. Zaire lost 9-0 to Yugoslavia, which had nothing at all to do with their coach being a Yugoslav. Scotland beat Zaire 2-0.

Another football one!

One of the many reasons Johan Cruyff is worshipped in Barcelona (whom he starred for as a player and manager) is that he called his son Jordi, who is the patron saint of Catalonia. In the early 1970s this name was illegal under the Franco government, but Mrs Cruyff had had a difficult pregnancy, and Jordi was born in Amsterdam.

Bournemouth Football Club changed their name to AFC Bournemouth in order to be the first league club when listed alphabetically.

Obviously never thought to win some games and get to first place on merit, then.

Talking of football, I heard the other day that Arthur Conan Doyle used to play in goal for Portsmouth.

He played for 'a' Portsmouth side, but not 'the' Portsmouth side.

Dr. Ruth (Westheimer) was trained as a sniper in the IDF.

The lyrics for Johnny Cash's hit song, A Boy Named Sue, were written by children's book book author Shel Silverstein (read Uncle Shelby's ABZ Book).

ATM transactions at the Vatican Bank can be done in Latin.

These and 47 more (mostly) useless bits can be found here: http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/62490

CZ, as usual, you´re a fount of useless wisdom.

Btw, and useless for most here...some of the spots on films you work with - dry air, static electricity? Films can throw sparks when you unroll one that has been wound tight under such conditions.

Yea, we see static sparks on many of the rolls shot while on EVA. The vacuum of space probably increases the effect.

Hmmm, yup. And the blue sparks you get when ripping duct tape off the roll have allegedly caused methane explosions in mines.
As so many hootooers work in space and mines, finding the how and why might be considered sufficiently useless to be shown here.

Nobody knows what Herman the German´s German name was - but we know his wife was called Thusnelda.

The colour of tax discs on cars in the UK changes each year according to the colours of the rainbow.

The colors of the highly useless Homeland Security threat levels in the U.S. do NOT correspond to the rainbow. (Blue and Green are reversed.)

The UK security threat levels are based on the colours of the bikini:

A44720165

Icy - been there, seen it. We had a largish British garrison in my home town, and how the powers-that-be react to threats - mickey mouse.
Bleeping inferno, it took them 40 years to give soldiers abroad neutral British car numberplates for their private cars instead of "I´m a soldier, shoot at me".

Looks like the chinless wonders still rule HM´s Forces.

From Phil Plait's twitterfeed (@BadAstronomer): The letter "i" appears in the word yippikiyay three times, and is pronounced differently each time.

The way I say it, the letter i is prounounced differently twice

but there's only one i in "it"