Square Eyes

Hughesy wrote:Thanks Mrs M.

All this weather talk has got me thinking about another confusing saying: that of it raining cats and dogs. How on earth did that phrase come about??

Yours barking up the wrong tree,

Hughesy

That is a quaint little saying, although, I’ve not heard it for a while. It seems to have been replaced by a saying about raining peas. I don’t know what that’s all about but it could be to do with aeroplanes dropping the leftover on-board dinners as they fly over.

Raining cats and dogs is thought to have hailed from the days of the thatched roof. Dogs and cats would make themselves warm and cosy in the thatch but when it rained heavily, the poor little mites would come down and find somewhere a tad dryer to sleep.

Another explanation, and I think it’s quite sad , is way back when there wasn’t any drainage in cities, streets became flooded during a big downpour of rain drowning the dogs and cats that lived in the streets. The poor little dog and cat bodies lying in the streets after the downpour gave the appearance dog and cats had fell from the skies.

Ii’s really interesting to find the number of languages where there is an equivalent to the good old British “It’s bucketing down”. Buckets of rain are emptied from the skies in Bulgarian, Croatian, Finnish, Lithuanian, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovenian, Spanish and Ukrainian.

The oddest expressions for excessive rain I thought were Welsh, “Mae hi'n bwrw hen wragedd a ffyn /cyllyll a ffyrc” (“It's raining old ladies and sticks / knives and forks.”) and Danish “Det regner skomagerdrenge” (it's raining shoemakers' apprentices) Oh well, I’m sure there is an explanation somewhere for those too.

David Mitchell's Mom wrote:Danish “Det regner skomagerdrenge” (it's raining shoemakers' apprentices)

That's fantastic! I'm going to use that one and see if it catches on!


Dear David Mitchell's Mom,

Why doesn't glue stick to the bottle?

Yours tackily,

Sutti

Sutti's big hair wrote:

David Mitchell's Mom wrote:Danish “Det regner skomagerdrenge” (it's raining shoemakers' apprentices)

That's fantastic! I'm going to use that one and see if it catches on!


Dear David Mitchell's Mom,

Why doesn't glue stick to the bottle?

Yours tackily,

Sutti

Oddly enough Sutti, I've had a bottle sitting on my desk for about six weeks with a brush sticking out of the top but it's still runny. I think it's the shape of the bottle, sort of hour glass shaped it is and the glue is in the bottom section.

Glue bottles are normally airtight; this is because, with most glues and solvents, it's the reaction to air that gives the chemical compound in the bottle it’s ability to stick items together.

Some solvents dry out or evaporate making the chemicals more concentrate, sticky and eventually dry out to form the bond. Some solvents react chemically with the air, called oxidation, to become sticky and form a bond.

Epoxy solvents (normally two tubes that are mixed together to form an extremely strong bond) don’t mind the air getting to them in their separate containers because they stay runny in the container until the two compounds are mixed together. They bond very well just like a happy couple. Ahhhhh

Mrs M.

Dear Mrs M,

I would have written sooner but I accidentally found myself glued to the telly...

Having relocated my old, warped frisbee earlier today, I was wondering when the frisbee was invented and has the original design been improved upon over the years?

Yours skimmingly,

Sbh

Sutti's big hair wrote:Dear Mrs M,

I would have written sooner but I accidentally found myself glued to the telly...

Having relocated my old, warped frisbee earlier today, I was wondering when the frisbee was invented and has the original design been improved upon over the years?

Yours skimmingly,

Sbh

Sutti, I have a rather bad recollection concerning a Frisbee and a large dog

Strange item really with a rather interesting story. You see, the Frisbie Baking Company (1871-1958) of Bridgeport, Connecticut, sold pies to many American colleges. Students made a game from the empty pie tins by throwing and catching them and thus the game of Frisbie throwing was invented and caught on.

The first evolution in the Frsbie story came when the first plastic frisbie was developed in 1948 by Walter Frederick Morrison and his partner Warren Franscioni. The plastic Frisbie could fly further and with better accuracy than the tin pie plate. Morrison (on his todd) later produced a plastic Frisbie and named it the Pluto Platter, which is the basic design for all Frisbees. Morrison sold the rights to the toy company 'Wham-O' in late 1955.

Wham-O renamed the Pluto Patter the Frisbee, after hearing how the original pie tin throwing game came by its name.

Ed Headrick, an inventor at Wham-O, updated the Frisbee design with bands of raised ridges, called the Rings of Headrick, giving the new Frisbee a much smoother flight.

Wham O sold over one hundred million Frisbee’s before selling the rights to the Frisbee to Mattel.

Yes, all the best games come from a lark in the park, or, college grounds as it was in this case.

Mrs M

Dear Mrs M,

If there are 7 days in a week and 52 weeks in a year, shouldn't a year actually be 364 days long?

Yours confusingly,

Hughes

Hughesy wrote:Dear Mrs M,

If there are 7 days in a week and 52 weeks in a year, shouldn't a year actually be 364 days long?

Yours confusingly,

Hughes

Ahhh Hughesy,

I came across the answer to this puzzle when I wondered why the day and dates for every year didn’t remain the same. Why wasn’t the 1st of January a Monday every year?

The answer to both questions is that there are 365 and a quarter days in a year because it takes the earth that long to orbit the sun.

The Romans divided the lunar month into 28 days (it's actually 29 and a fraction days, but the Romans didn't have the ability to work that out then). and divided the month into 4 to give 7 days as a week.

The months were re-calculated later to fit the true solar year. (31 days , 30 days, 28 days etc ) Although, there is no exact number of days that could be used as a multiple for a "week" that would divide evenly into the solar year. The time for a day depends on Earth's rotation around its axis, and that's quite independent of the time it takes the Earths to orbit the sun. So a day is not really 24 hours either, but, we won’t go to much into that.

To sum up then, although 7 x 52 =364, there are physically 365 and a quarter days in a real year which pushes the first day of a new year on a day each year so you can‘t use the same calendar every year. The 7 days of one particular week are not always from the same year, the end of December/ begining of January.

The spare quarter is added together to become Feb 29th every 4th year and is commonly known as the ‘leap‘ year.

At the moment, the days seem to be getting a little shorter

Mrs M

Very informative! Thanks for sparing the time (boom! boom!) to clear that up Mrs M

Dear Mrs M,

Are you alright? We've not seen you here for weeks.

Yours worriedly,

Hughes

Hughesy wrote:Dear Mrs M,

Are you alright? We've not seen you here for weeks.

Yours worriedly,

Hughes

No worries Hughesy. I've been having trouble posting. I think my PC security system had taken a dislike to Square Eyes. I've done some re-jigging (spoke too soon it's off again ) and all did seem fine.

Ah well, I've managed to get one (almost two) posts before it started to shout EXTERMINATE

I have noticed it seems to find quite a lot of problems coming up to renewal time for subscription

David Mitchell's Mom wrote:

Hughesy wrote:Dear Mrs M,

Are you alright? We've not seen you here for weeks.

Yours worriedly,

Hughes

No worries Hughesy. I've been having trouble posting. I think my PC security system had taken a dislike to Square Eyes. I've done some re-jigging (spoke too soon it's off again ) and all did seem fine.

Ah well, I've managed to get one (almost two) posts before it started to shout EXTERMINATE

I have noticed it seems to find quite a lot of problems coming up to renewal time for subscription

Blimey, that's no good! Sounds as if you need to get yerself a new, less intrusive security system Mrs M. I was having similar problems with the Graham Norton antivirus I used to use, so I recently switched to The Shield Deluxe, and voila! My problems were over:

http://www.pcsecurityshield.com/lp/shie ... xe-11.aspx

Sorry, just realised this sounds like an infomercial or something

Hughesy wrote:
Blimey, that's no good! Sounds as if you need to get yerself a new, less intrusive security system Mrs M. I was having similar problems with the Graham Norton antivirus I used to use, so I recently switched to The Shield Deluxe, and voila! My problems were over:

http://www.pcsecurityshield.com/lp/shie ... xe-11.aspx

Sorry, just realised this sounds like an infomercial or something

It seems to be better now my subs are done

I'll look into the ad, er, recommendation for when I'm up for renewal. Well, not me, the security thingy.

Dear David Mitchell's Mom,

I've been very busy in recent months, but I just thought I'd drop you a line. I'm currently at home after the Headteacher at the school where I work decided to close the site down for the day, due to the snow.

Tonight I should be holding an after-school rehearsal for 'Cinderella' the school pantomime (adapted and directed by yours truly). How can I reconcile the fact that the weather has put the kibosh to my plans?

Yours

BRONSON

BRONSON wrote:Dear David Mitchell's Mom,

I've been very busy in recent months, but I just thought I'd drop you a line. I'm currently at home after the Headteacher at the school where I work decided to close the site down for the day, due to the snow.

Tonight I should be holding an after-school rehearsal for 'Cinderella' the school pantomime (adapted and directed by yours truly). How can I reconcile the fact that the weather has put the kibosh to my plans?

Yours

BRONSON

Dear Bronson,

How unfortunate, for the snow to have scuppled your plans, and for me to have resisted the lure of the net to get the upper hand of mounting work for two nights .

The snow came to my part of the world at 9am, had stopped by 9.30, and was all gone, melted by the hot sun, at 10am

What a terrible time to have to cancell a rehearsal! Well, knowing how hard working you are around this time of the year, I would think of your disapointment as a well earned R&R, although, you would probably have found something worthwile to do in the rehersal's place like visiting Square Eyes.

Cindella was the first school panto I played in. I was the Fairy God Mother (fairies seemed to be a regular theme through my school acting days come to think of it ) I was a Fairy God Mother with some rather funny lines and a trick wand that bent when I was casting my spells. I used to like rehearsals more than the performance come to think of it

I hope all goes well on the big night(s)

Mrs M

Thanks Mrs 'M'... some 'fairy-nough' comments there!

BRONSON