Did you know?

Eglantine21: Not only your pee! Many people have looked back after they been to the toilet and seen that it is red and have got worried it might be some sort of cancer, but mostly it isn't. Maybe the best thing is to avoid beetroot. You don't have to have it, even though it is a salad vegetable as well, you can just have the green. it might hell clear things up xxxxxx

I don't like beetroot, but, amazingly, the beetroot crisps in a packet of veggie crisps had the same effect, bigcol1.

I learnt today that the biblical saying "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven" is actually a translation error - the ancient Hebrew words for camel and rope being very similar!

As for a meal of asparagus and beetroot .........

Joelsnan-I only discovered that recently too!!

It only dawned on me when I was well over 60, that if you want to weigh messy stuff like soft butter or golden syrup, the sensible and obvious (finally!) thing to do, is to plonk the container on the scales, set it to whatever weight you want, and then spoon out until it hits zero.

Can't tell you how chuffed I was when worked that out!

I only recently found out that if I go to bottom left of Gransnet posts a blue box appears with "Bookmark" written on it. If I click on this It will take me straight to that post when I return instead of searching for where I had last got to. I hope this makes sense????
I have been on Gransnet for 3 years in May!!

GrandmaKT I learned, in my youth, that "the eye of the needle" was the small, foot passenger door set into the larger gates to a city.
Either explanation is interesting though.

A guide in Jerusalem explains:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsJu6Hqz0s8

BTW Tesco sell non-stick foil for those who didn't know about it, so I guess other supermarkets do as well.

I know we’ve moved on from wee but just in case anyone needs to know, those fizzy vitamin C tablets that you dissolve in water make your wee luminous yellow. I discovered that all by myself, I thought I’d got some awful disease until Mr Google put me right!

Did you know that pall bearers, as we commonly call those who carry coffins, are not actually pall bearers at all.

We say 'A pall of smoke and pollution lay over the town.'

And a pall was a canopy, sometimes on long poles, carried in procession above the coffin and held by 4 or 6 men. They were the pall bearers.

This cloth was draped over the casket once it arrived at the church.

Did you know that bananas are a herb, and are related to ginger root?

This won't affect anyone else but a few months ago I discovered that the locks on some of our double-glazed windows are, and always have been, inoperative . This is because they are upstairs windows and there is no requirement for them to lock.

Readers, I have spent the last ten years carefully twisting the keys to get them in the correct position to open the windows. Why has my dh never said anything before??

Not exactly Bradfordlass
The “pall” is better known, certainly in Scotland as the mortcloth which covered the coffin (and was then usually retained by the parish for future use, although wealthy families had their own)
Etymology. A "pall" is a heavy cloth that is draped over a coffin. Thus the term "pallbearer" is used to signify someone who "bears" the coffin which the pall covers.

MawBroonsback and Bradfordlass, so was the pall or mortcloth actually carried as a canopy for protection over the coffin, or just laid on it?

I can't speak for Scotland's use of the pall but in ancient England it was often carried, on poles, over the coffin.

There are some woodcuts online showing this but can I heck as like find the dratted things.

Mawbroon is right that a mortcloth, which lays over the coffin can be known as a pall, but originally, it was carried higher, above the coffin in procession.

Sometimes just by its corners, by 4 men, but if it was a dignitary being buried then on poles and up to 6 men carried it.
At the church, the poles were removed and the cloth laid atop the casket.

I wish I could find that woodcut !

Dictionary definition
pall1
/pɔːl/
noun
1.
a cloth spread over a coffin, hearse, or tomb.
synonyms:funeral cloth, coffin covering
"the coffin lay under a rich velvet pall"
2.
a dark cloud of smoke, dust, etc.
"a pall of black smoke hung over the quarry"
synonyms:cloud, covering, cloak, mantle, veil, shroud, layer, blanket, sheet, curtain, canopy
"a pall of black smoke hung over the quarry"

I learned today that the easiest way to cut a pizza is with a pair of scissors!

Bfdlass...Thanks! just found that interesting!

Maw....Thanks.

I used to know how the old registration numbers on cars indicated the year but was totally confused with the new ones until out with my son looking for a new car he explained it to me in an Oh Mother way. Why is it always so simple when you know how!

I was horrified to discover today that the French song I learned at primary school is about plucking the feathers off a gentle sky lark!!!!!

Alouette, Gentille Alouette

"I’ll pluck your head
I’ll pluck your head
And your head, and your head,
And your eyes, and your eyes
And your bill, and your bill
Lark, lark. Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!"

OMG. We were never given a translation when we were nine. I am not much of a French speaker now, either, but when OH told me this morning that it is about plucking and eating a chirpy sky lark I was horrified!

It's such a cheerful, jolly little song. I am still in shock.

Oh yes Day6 the French do love ( eating) their small songbirds......and snails....and frogs!?

Day 6

I couldn’t believe your post so checked it out and it is true! Yuk!

I found out today that mussels have feet, brain, a slow release hinge (for normal use) and a quick one (for emergencies). One of their two siphons is to squirt out and the other is to suck in. If you don't believe me, look up their anatomy on Google.

Ps: I don't suppose anyone gives a hoot!

Well I have never eaten a mussel and now I never will

I have bought some non stick foil after discovering from you lovely ladies that it exists!

Who knew?