Chapter 14

More Random Stuff;

People are more creative in the shower. When we take a warm shower, we experience an increased dopamine flow that makes us more creative.

Baby rabbits are called kits. Cute!

The unicorn is the national animal of Scotland. It was apparently chosen because of its connection with dominance and chivalry as well as purity and innocence in Celtic mythology.

The first airplane flew on December 17, 1903. Wilbur and Orville Wright made four brief flights at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, with their first powered aircraft, aka the first airplane. (On a personal note, in 1995 I was visiting my grandmother in her care facility, and while she couldn’t recall who was the current president (Slick Willie), she could recall events as a child with astonishing clarity. She told me about how her father had sat in the front parlor of the house, reading a newspaper article to the family “about two crazy bicycle makers in North Carolina who made a mechanical kite large enough to carry a man”.)

A 73-year-old bottle of French Burgundy became the most expensive bottle of wine ever sold at auction in 2018, going for $558,000 (approx £439,300). The bottle of 1945 Romanee-Conti sold at Sotheby for more than 17 times its original estimate of $32,000.

Competitive art used to be an Olympic sport. Between 1912 and 1948, the international sporting events awarded medals for music, painting, sculpture and architecture. Shame it didn’t catch on, the famous pottery scene in Ghost could have won an Olympic medal as well as an Academy Award for the best screenplay.

In 2014, there was a Tinder match in Antarctica. Two research scientists matched on the global dating app in the most remote part of the world - a man working at the United States Antarctic McMurdo Station and a woman camping a 45-minute helicopter ride away. (What are the chances?)

The Spanish national anthem has no words. The ‘Marcha Real’ is one of only four national anthems in the world (along with those of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, and San Marino) to have no official lyrics.

The Japanese word ‘Kuchi zamishi’ is the act of eating when you’re not hungry because your mouth is lonely. We do this all the time.

The actors who voiced Mickey and Minnie mouse got married in real life. Russi Taylor (Minnie) and Wayne Allwine (Mickey) tied the knot in 1991.

You still have time to submit your egg recipes!