Monday, January the 3rd, 2005
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On Christmas Eve, we invited Mrs Gubbins to resume her occasional “weblink recommendations” which many readers find so invaluable. Indeed, the octogenarian crone became so excited that she brewed an extra pot of tea and ate a whole half-packet of those delicious Rich Tea™ biscuits. So, just over a week later, she's back again:
Hello readers, Mrs Gubbins here. One of the incidental pleasures of the BBC News site is their regular list of Ten Things We Didn't Know This Time Last Week. At year's end, they collected together 100 Things, which is my recommendation for you today. A word of warning, however. Many of these hundred things are quite dull, and one of them even mentions that loathsome fraud Clive James, who has been insulted here before*, with good reason. But I was quite taken with number 11, which notes that in its original translation The Communist Manifesto spoke not of “a spectre haunting Europe”, but of a “frightful hobgoblin”, which is much more thrilling, and number 21, on the earliest use of the word “electricity”.
It is the bird facts, though, that make the site worth a visit. Find out about crows (4), pigeons (9), ducks (73), and birds crashing into buildings (76). There is also a photograph of some penguins.
* NOTE:See “Minor Rant”,19 September.