You gotta be joking

[Doodoo]

In the 1500's
Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May, and they still smelled pretty good by June. Since they were starting to smell, however, brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor. Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting married.

[Doodoo]

But here's a shocker: Nintendo was originally a playing card company. They also briefly dabbled in running a taxi service, operating a TV network, and managing a chain of hotels... before finally settling on video games in 1974.

The largest freshwater lake on Earth is Lake Superior. It's mind-bogglingly big. In fact, Lake Superior is so big that if you were to spread out all the water it contains across all of North and South America, you'd have a giant puddle one foot deep. You could literally cover two continents in water from a single lake.

In 1923, jockey Frank Hayes won a race in New York despite being dead. He suffered a heart attack mid-race, but he stayed on his horse long enough for his horse to finish the race.

Potty Training
Nearly 40,000 Americans are injured by toilets every year. That's right: every year, 40,000 people are forced to visit the emergency room and say to the nurse on duty, "uhhhh, I had a toilet accident".

Cookie Monster
The average person will likely eat over 35,000 cookies in their lifetime.

[papafarang]

Just looked at the BBC news. Top headlines....Some guy in a dress won eurorubbish contest. Not much else going on, must be a slow day in Ukraine and Palestine.

[Laan Yaa Mo]

In the 1500's
Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May, and they still smelled pretty good by June. Since they were starting to smell, however, brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor. Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting married.

Really, Doodoo? That is not true for China.

The nobility may have had the “luxury” of being able to bathe once a week in their own homes, while some common folk could access vast public bathhouses that became prevalent in the Song dynasty (960 – 1279). But while private bathing among the masses is a relatively modern phenomenon (in the 20th century Mao Zedong is said to have rarely bathed, for example), possible only after indoor plumbing became prevalent in the late 1990s, Chinese dynasties of the past developed their own bathing cultures.

William Feetham, an English stove maker, invented the earliest mechanized shower in 1767, but bathing culture in China can be traced back over 3,000 years to the Shang dynasty (1600 – 1046 BCE). Oracle bone inscriptions containing the characters 沐 (mù, washing hair) and 浴 (yù, washing the body) suggest that even then people paid attention to personal hygiene.

The Rites of Zhou (《周礼》), a work on Zhou dynasty (1046 – 256 BCE) politics and culture mainly compiled during the Spring and Autumn Period (770 – 476 BCE), recorded that “There were bathrooms in the emperor’s bedroom.” In 2017, archeologists in Xi’an, Shaanxi province, excavated three royal bathrooms decorated with ceramic floor and wall tiles, and featuring drainage holes and sewage pipes. Experts date the bathrooms to the Warring States period (475– 221 BCE), and believe they belonged to the palace of the Qin state.

In the Zhou dynasty, bathing was not just for personal hygiene, but also regarded as a social ritual. According to the Book of Rites (《礼记》), a collection of texts mainly published in the Han dynasty (206 – 220 CE) on society and politics of the Zhou era, a filial person should boil hot water for their parents to take a bath with every five days, and help their parents to wash their hair every three days. When visiting another household, it was considered good manners to take a bath provided by the host before enjoying the meal.

In the Han dynasty, bathing became even more important. The government even offered holidays to officials so that they could wash. The historical text The Rites of the Han Court (《汉宫仪》) states: “Every five days, a day off is offered for taking a bath, also known as a ‘bathing holiday.’” This custom remained in later dynasties: In the Tang dynasty (618 – 907), the “bathing holiday” took place once every ten working days.

During the later years of the Han dynasty, an ancient version of shower gel emerged. Known as “bath bean (澡豆),” it was a powdery soap was made from ground beans or peas mixed with spices such as cloves, eaglewood, various flowers, and even powdered jade. Bath bean was a luxury that became fashionable among the upper classes during the Northern and Southern Dynasties (420 – 589) both for cleaning and supposedly to nourish the skin.

[Doodoo]

4 Countries that start with the letter "H"

1. Haiti 2. Hungary 3. Honduras 4. ??????

[Doodoo]

The one and only Cheese Rolling

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fora0TmtnU

https://www.mentalfloss.com/posts/chees ... nconscious

and all for a round cheese

[Doodoo]

COSTA RICA

1) The decision to abolish the army in 1948 was not only a move towards peace but also stemmed from a unique circumstance: after a brief civil war, the victorious side opted to invest in education and healthcare instead of maintaining military forces.

FANTASTIC Can you imagine what the world would look like if all countries did this!!!!

$14 trillion a year

Conflict and violence cost the world more than $14 trillion a year. That’s the equivalent of $5 a day for every person on the planet.

[Laan Yaa Mo]

It sounds like a hippy paradise. Is it?



This was recorded in Toronto, Ontario (1969).

On the other hand,

How bad is crime in Costa Rica?
Costa Rica Travel Advice & Safety | Smartraveller
Violent crime, including carjackings and 'express kidnappings', is increasingly common in Costa Rica. Criminals often target tourist areas, resorts, transport hubs and public transport. Drink spiking with methanol is common and has killed people. Be aware of your surroundings.Nov 10, 2566 BE

[Doodoo]

Biggest Airport
individual Fahd International Airport (DMM) — Dammam, Saudi Arabia
DACO. Dammam Airports Company At 299.61 square miles (776 square kilometers), individual Fahd International Airport is the largest airport in the world by total area. For comparison, individual Fahd Airport is approximately the same size as New York City, which itself contains two major airports within its city limits.

[Doodoo]

Largest Fuel station in USA

This doesnt make sense (with going electric how come)
74,000 square feet of concrete (4.3 Rai)
120 gas pumps


https://www.today.com/food/worlds-large ... -rcna91120

[Doodoo]

Man Utd legend meets a supporter of the club who cycled from Mongolia to Old Trafford

https://www.premierleague.com/news/4011295

Amazing story

[Doodoo]

Police wages around the world
$1140 per year Ethiopia
to $75000 per year Switzerland

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LR6TO6DEiK8

[jackspratt]

Read the comments below this YT video, and take absolutely no notice of what it is saying.

[Doodoo]

In 1975, Tim Leatherman created a pocket knife with pliers, founding Leatherman in Portland, Oregon. Now, the company produces 10,000 hand-assembled multitools daily. https://cbsn.ws/3UMjJES
Great tool
My 1978 Leatherman is now with my grandson

[Doodoo]

She’s Britain’s cheese rolling champ again. NC (North Carolina) State grad to bring home the Gloucester

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/she-britai ... 02864.html

[Laan Yaa Mo]

Nature notes

Like many orchid species, the early purple orchid is a trickster. Plants generally attract pollinators by offering the reward of nectar, but early purple orchid flowers do not produce any. To be pollinated, they rely on the inexperience of young bees. When bees first emerge from their nest, they don’t know which flower species have the best sources of nectar, and learn by trial and error. By imitating the shape of nectariferous plants such as bluebells and bugle, early purple orchids fool the young bees into visiting them. The bees will be deceived a few times before wising up. Through a flowering period that stretches from April to June, early purple orchids rely on a constant stream of gullible “newbie” bees.

Jonathan Tulloch

[Laan Yaa Mo]

She’s Britain’s cheese rolling champ again. NC (North Carolina) State grad to bring home the Gloucester

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/she-britai ... 02864.html

INTERVIEW
I am the cheese-rolling champion — again. Now for the hard part
Abby Lampe, a two-time victor at the annual Gloucestershire competition, has a plan for getting her 3kg wheel prize through customs and back home to North Carolina
Samuel Lovett
Tuesday May 28 2024, 7.10pm BST, The Times
United States

The pursuit of greatness has driven mankind to countless once-unimaginable conquests: the climbing of Everest, the swimming of the Atlantic, the four-minute mile.

In Abby Lampe’s case, it drove her to fly more than 3,000 miles, throw herself down a precipitous hillside and claim a historic second title in Gloucestershire’s infamous cheese-rolling competition.

With Monday’s triumph, the 23-year-old from North Carolina rolled herself into the race’s hall of fame, proving that her victory in 2022 was “not a one-off”. Now, however, she faces the challenge of getting her 3kg (6.5lb) wheel of double Gloucester back home to America.

“I’m going to try and take it through customs, so fingers crossed they don’t take it off me,” Lampe said in a post-race interview.

Two years ago, she chose to ship her precious cheese wheel to her hometown of Raleigh, but said at the time the experience of finding a company that would transport it was “the hardest part of the whole ordeal” — far harder than rolling down the hill.

This time around, she has done her research and concluded that, because her double Gloucester is considered a hard cheese rather than soft, it should be allowed through by US customs. “I’ve been reading up about it this morning and I don’t see any problems. It’s hard cheese,” she said. “If it was a cottage cheese, then there’d be an issue.”

Official US guidelines state that “hard cured cheese such as parmesan or cheddar are generally admissible, soft cheeses such as brie and soft curd cheese and cheese in water are not”.

Assuming the double Gloucester makes it back in one piece, Lampe is planning a “cheese party” to celebrate her latest victory.

“I think we’ll have a charcuterie board,” she said, adding that she had paired her previous winnings with crackers and jam. However, she admitted her friends and family were not too keen on the “very strong and pungent” prize.

Lampe said the strategy she employed in Monday’s cheese-rolling mirrored that which propelled her to victory two years ago. Lined up alongside her fellow female competitors at the top of Cooper’s Hill — a terrifying, cliff-like descent marked by several rolling mounds and bumps — Lampe sprang into action shortly after the cheese wheel had been released.

She immediately entered into a rapid, head-spinning roll that she maintained for the rest of the race, allowing her to comfortably pull ahead of her rivals.

“You just have to keep rolling,” she said. “That served me very well. If you commit to rolling from the start, you can build up a lot of speed. In that ball, you’re absorbing all the hits from the tumbling. With running, you may go quicker, but you’re more likely to fall, which takes the momentum out of your descent.”

Lampe said she had been on holiday in Germany before the race but had booked the trip to allow her to take another pop at the cheese-rolling championship. “I wanted to win again and prove it was not a one-off,” she said of her 2022 title. “Anyone can win once, but doing it a second time shows it’s less about luck and more about skill.”

The competition, which attracts several thousand spectators, is not without danger. Past competitors have suffered concussions, broken limbs and suspected seizures, with six participants taken to hospital after last year’s event.

Asked if she would be returning for a third tilt at the title, Lampe said: “I’m not going to commit to anything right now, but I’m happy to see how I feel in the future.”

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/chee ... -gfrc9hwcq

[jackspratt]

The world's most odious media proprietor has gone and done it again.

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch, 93, marries for a fifth time

Rupert Murdoch marries 67-year-old retired molecular biologist Elena Zhukova at his Californian vineyard on Saturday, according to the Murdoch family's media outlets.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/justin

You can only imagine how many pages in the pre-nup.

[tamada]

The world's most odious media proprietor has gone and done it again.

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch, 93, marries for a fifth time

Rupert Murdoch marries 67-year-old retired molecular biologist Elena Zhukova at his Californian vineyard on Saturday, according to the Murdoch family's media outlets.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/justin

You can only imagine how many pages in the pre-nup.

Have they found the bodies of the previous four yet?

[Laan Yaa Mo]

Nature notes

There are certain butterflies that speak to us of spring: for instance, the sulphur yellow brimstone, the pretty little orange tip, the comma and the holly blue. But at this time of year they are often nowhere to be seen. The June gap is the natural consequence of the differing timings of butterfly life cycles. Orange tips only have one generation a year and it emerges and fades away early; by June those species that have two, such as small tortoiseshells, common whites, holly blues, peacocks and commas, have had their first brood and the second is yet to emerge. In July gatekeepers, meadow browns and skippers will emerge, to be joined by summer migrants such as painted ladies and red admirals.

Melissa Harrison