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

Purple Ronnie isn't purple.

PP

Are you Pink?

Well, sort of.

Mind, I have to say, I don't know Ronnie so well as to be absolutely adamant about his lack of purple.

PP

(I didn't know Purple Ronnie at all until just now. They don't sell a lot of Vimto in Texas.)

Purple Ronnie's real name is Giles Andreae

Purple Ronnie used to do the campaign leaflets for the Monster Raving Loony Party.

At least I think he did... it was a long time ago.

The Sanskrit word for "war" translates as "desire for more cows".

Alligators and crocodiles cannot stick out their tongues.

Oh, and mice have no gag reflex. (This explains why carbonated beverages are deadly to them; they can't belch. That might be useful. If so, please ignore.)

London will be the only city to have hosted the Modern Olympics three times.

...if you don't count Athens, 1906, that is.

London has been awarded the games a record 4 times, though. One was cancelled due to war.

In 1948 many of the competitors knitted their own sportswear, I hear.

If aliens should ever encounter a human being, they would quite correctly describe him as a collection of small living creatures that have settled in and on one rather large specimen. Something like: 'The terrestrial life form consists of 988 arachnids, a hundred billion bacteria, one human being, 70 amoebae and sometimes up to 500 threadworms.'

That would freak out some people I know.

All mammals can produce their own vitamin C, except for humans, apes and guinea pigs. And some monkeys.

mammals = zoogdieren?

in Dutch

Yes Interestman - that's right. (I deduce it from the German Säugetiere)

Now I get it. Thanks!

An omelet made with one ostrich egg is as large as one made with two dozen chicken eggs.