This week on Thinking Thursday were going to look at one of the most famous riddles of all time, and see if you can come up with an answer.
The riddle I pose is one originally penned by Lewis Carroll in Alice in Wonderland:
Why is a raven like a writing desk?
As always there is no prize except the fun of the chase but if you wish to put your answer in the comments I’d love to read it.
Answer on Sunday evening, as usual.
Oh and no cheating on this one by looking it up on the intertubes. ☺
In 1939 Punch published cartoons of a fanciful railway. But little did they realise that it would become a reality in the 1950s and that it would carry some 2 million passengers.
The reality was the Far Tottering and Oyster Creek Branch Railway — a narrow gauge railway created in Battersea Gardens by Rowland Emett for the 1951 Festival of Britain.
Way away in Chattooga County, Georgia, USA the 82 year old woman who was born Carolyn Marjorie Ann Clay, has filed to change her name. Currently known as Serpentfoot Serpentfoot (according to her driving licence) this wouldn’t be the first time she’s changed her name — or done other weird and outrageous things including stripping nude at a Rome City Commission meeting in protest against them praying at the beginning of meetings.
Unsurprisingly her name change has already been rejected by a judge in Floyd County — despite her claim that it would be shortened to Nofoot Allfoot Serpentfoot. So she has moved to Chattooga County, revised her new name and submitted a new application to the courts there.
And what is that new name? …
Nofoot Allfoot-69-mouth-tail-solids-liquids-gases-animals-vegetable-mineral-all-predators-and-prey-that-consume-and-move-with-feet-fins-wings-wheels-canes-roots-limbs-vines-landslides-dust-wind-water-fire-ice-gravity-vacuums-black-holes-going-over-under-around-and-through-Our-Greater-Self-our-habitat-the-cosmos-of-which-we-are-but-part-and-where-all-life-feeds-upon-other-life-from-the-smallest-atoms-or-bacteria-to-the-great-black-holes-and-dog-eat-dog-and-“Last-Suppers”-where-we-are-what-we-eat-or-consume-and-each-lives-on-in-the-other…∞ Serpentfoot
Read more of this bizarreness in Chattanooga Times Free Press
This month I thought we would return to the humorous for our Ten Things …
Ten Exciting New Paint Shades
This week’s Thinking Thursday post asked you to make sense of
11 was a racehorse
12 was 12
1111 race
12112
Well it’s all down to how you read it. How about:
Eleven was a racehorse,
Twelve was one too.
Eleven won one race,
Twelve won one too.
Hat-tip Marcus du Sautoy who provided this in his book Finding Moonshine.
Hot on the heels of our first Thinking Thursday post, here’s the second puzzle in this irregular series.
Make sense of the following:
11 was a racehorse
12 was 12
1111 race
12112
As before there’s no prize for correct answers other than the fun of taking part, but I would love it if you put your answer in the comments.
As before, I’ll post the answer on Sunday evening.
The claim that carrots can help your vision would seem to have some pretty solid scientific grounding. Retinal is essential for vision, and the beta-carotene in carrots offers a compound from which our body can produce the retinal our eyes require. However, eating carrots will only improve your eyesight if you are vitamin A deficient.
It turns out that the idea that carrots can improve your eyesight has its roots in a bit of British propaganda from World War II. After successfully using a new radar system to locate and shoot down German bombers, the British forces came up with the entirely false campaign stating that their pilots were eating carrots to improve their night vision in order to hide the existence of the radar system from the Germans. This campaign of disinformation was so successful that it took root and persists today.
From Can carrots help you see in the dark?
This week another photograph from the archives. And this is a very old one, dating as it does from April 2001 when the Anthony Powell Society held its first ever conference in the Farrar Theatre at Eton College. This piano was resting quietly in the theatre foyer.
