Today I learned …

[Dr. Medulla]

… that Harry Morgan (aka Col. Potter from MASH) is still alive. Born in 1915.

[Wolter]

Holy shit. I just assumed he was dead.

[tepista]

I never watched Mash, but I watched Dragnet.

[Dr. Medulla]

I never watched Mash, but I watched Dragnet.

He was already really old then.

[Dr. Medulla]

… that Britain's Queen Anne was so obese that she was unable to climb or descend stairs. To move between floors, she was raised or lowered via a series of pulleys through trapdoors. Source: Bill Bryson's At Home: A Short History of Private Life.

[Kory]

… that Britain's Queen Anne was so obese that she was unable to climb or descend stairs. To move between floors, she was raised or lowered via a series of pulleys through trapdoors. Source: Bill Bryson's At Home: A Short History of Private Life.

Not so private now...

[Silent Majority]

… that Britain's Queen Anne was so obese that she was unable to climb or descend stairs. To move between floors, she was raised or lowered via a series of pulleys through trapdoors. Source: Bill Bryson's At Home: A Short History of Private Life.

Waiting for that to either come out in paperback or get seriously reduced in hardback. I've really warmed to Bryson; got his Made In America book and enjoyed it almost as much as A Short History of Nearly Everything.

[Dr. Medulla]

… that Britain's Queen Anne was so obese that she was unable to climb or descend stairs. To move between floors, she was raised or lowered via a series of pulleys through trapdoors. Source: Bill Bryson's At Home: A Short History of Private Life.

Waiting for that to either come out in paperback or get seriously reduced in hardback. I've really warmed to Bryson; got his Made In America book and enjoyed it almost as much as A Short History of Nearly Everything.

I'm listening to the audio version. It's good stuff, up to Bryson's standard of lively prose and efficient use of detail and example to make his point. You won't be disappointed if you liked those other two.

[Dr. Medulla]

… that if your pillow is more than six years old, fully one-tenth of its weight is made up of mites, dead mites, and mite shit. Source: Bill Bryson's At Home: A Short History of Private Life.

[Wolter]

… that if your pillow is more than six years old, fully one-tenth of its weight is made up of mites, dead mites, and mite shit. Source: Bill Bryson's At Home: A Short History of Private Life.

You can stop learning now.

[wmhp]

That Greenland really is a place, it has a towns and everything. Dont think they have ever taken part in the world cup, but people do live there.

[Alyssa]

… that Britain's Queen Anne was so obese that she was unable to climb or descend stairs. To move between floors, she was raised or lowered via a series of pulleys through trapdoors. Source: Bill Bryson's At Home: A Short History of Private Life.

Waiting for that to either come out in paperback or get seriously reduced in hardback. I've really warmed to Bryson; got his Made In America book and enjoyed it almost as much as A Short History of Nearly Everything.

I'm listening to the audio version. It's good stuff, up to Bryson's standard of lively prose and efficient use of detail and example to make his point. You won't be disappointed if you liked those other two.

Sounds really interesting...Little tidbits of information like that are my sort of thing. I'm downloading some of his audiobooks right now.

[Dr. Medulla]

… that Britain's Queen Anne was so obese that she was unable to climb or descend stairs. To move between floors, she was raised or lowered via a series of pulleys through trapdoors. Source: Bill Bryson's At Home: A Short History of Private Life.

Waiting for that to either come out in paperback or get seriously reduced in hardback. I've really warmed to Bryson; got his Made In America book and enjoyed it almost as much as A Short History of Nearly Everything.

I'm listening to the audio version. It's good stuff, up to Bryson's standard of lively prose and efficient use of detail and example to make his point. You won't be disappointed if you liked those other two.

Sounds really interesting...Little tidbits of information like that are my sort of thing. I'm downloading some of his audiobooks right now.

His history/science stuff is very entertaining and informative (if factoidy); his travelogues, imo, are horrible—he comes off as a snarky snob, bemoaning how awful things are.

[Dr. Medulla]

… about one scary-ass Victorian-era nursery rhyme: The Story of Little Suck-a-Thumb by the unwhimsical Heinrich Hoffmann. Here's a recitation:
[youtube][/youtube]

Source: Bill Bryson's At Home: A Short History of Private Life.

[Dr. Medulla]

… one of my favourite series of childhood books, Enid Blyton's The Faraway Tree, has been mutilated for reasons that could only be described as inane. From Wikipedia:

In modern reprints, the names of the children have been changed:
• Jo is changed to Joe, because the character is a boy and this is the more commonly used spelling of the name for males;
• Bessie is changed to Beth, because the former name is now less commonly used as a nickname for Elizabeth;
• Fanny is changed to Frannie, because the former name is slang for vulva in the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand (see Wiktionary entry) and "bottom" in the USA.
• Cousin Dick, who appears in "The Magic Faraway Tree", has been changed to "Rick" as "Dick" is American, Australian and British slang for penis.
In modern reprints, the character of Dame Slap has been re-named to Dame Snap and she no longer practises corporal punishment but instead reprimands her students by yelling at them very loudly.

How on earth did I survive to adulthood, being exposed to books with kids named Fanny and Dick, and with obviously sinister adults who beat on children?