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

The flight speed of a European Swallow (unladen) is 40 km/h (24 mph).

Summer or winter plumage?

The first song performed simultaneously on Earth and in space was 'ISS (Is Somebody Singing?) by Chris Hadfield and Barenaked Ladies:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvAnfi8WpVE

Not German?

Dzere iss no sonnk in Chermann. Ve vallk in shtep.

Cannibalism is not specifically illegal in most countries. Rather, those caught cannibalizing are typically charged with murder or desecration of a corpse.

If someone were to voluntarily slice off a chunk of themselves and serve it to you on a platter with a nice garnish, feel free to nosh away.

By the way, if anyone finds the above information useful... we can't be friends.

So you aren't a 'Fannibal', BG?

There is a reason why human flesh for consumption is referred to as 'Long pig'.

(Some time ago, I saw a chart on teh interwebs that showed the relationship between meats and their flavours - I can't find it now).

PP.

Our forefathers ate parts of grandpa to keep his wisdom in the family - do you awfully mind if noone here snacks you?

In March 1910, Harry Houdini became the first person to successfully to achieve powered flight over Australia. (Another pilot, Colin Defries was the first to fly, but he crashed on landing.)

After his success, Houdini proudly proclaimed that while history would likely forget him as a magician and escape artist, it would always remember him as an aviation pioneer.






Personally, I value his work debunking psychics and other frauds. He was the inspiration for folks like The Amazing Randi and Penn & Teller.

The Guinness World Record for book most often stolen from public libraries is held by the Guinness World Records book.

While Christopher Reeves was in hospital awaiting surgery to reconnect his spine to his skull following his riding accident, a man in surgical scrubs burst into his room claiming (in a thick Russian accent) to be a proctologist and demanding to perform a rectal exam on Reeves.

It was Robin Williams. Reeves laughed for the first time since his fall.

The Super Bowl was named as a joking reference to the toy, 'super ball'.

The plural, gender-neutral term for "nieces and nephews" is "niblings"

Yep. That's properly useless.

I won't ever use that and in fact will probably never even remember the word.

In fact it is worse than useles since I have wasted a minute of my life responding to the post.

PP.

Thank you.

I take pride in my work.

Obviously, I'm not going to respond further because that would mean that even more of my......Doh!

PP.

Ooh!

Here's another nice one from Neil deGrasse Tyson.



>>The letters that spell "eleven plus two" also spell "twelve plus one".<<

Excellent. That information is TOTALLY useless.