All Articles
Lost in Translation V – Misadventures in English
English is the global language of communication which means that when it collides with local languages it can have hilarious results. Here we’ve gathered together the results of some of the planets finest misadventures in English.
When did people start freezing food for preservation ?
“Why not collect the ice off our ponds and sell it in the tropics?” – Well actually that’s exactly what they did. In this article we take a look at a potted history of how mankind developed freezing food in order to preserve it.
Dropping in on the Big Bang
In the days of analogue TV you turned into a channel through various UHF frequencies. If you stopped tuning before you found a channel, you’d see a screen full of ‘snow’ – white dots . Some of that ‘snow’ is a sign of the Big Bang , although nobody was aware of its significance until the 1960s.
Out of the mouths of babes oft times come gems – more school test funnies.
As the saying goes “Out of the mouths of babes oft times come gems” … and those gems can sometimes be extremely hilarious indeed. We’ve gathered together some of the things that children have written at school in response to tests
The Ultimate Conspiracy Theory – The Phantom Time Hypothesis
Ok, hang on to your hats, this conspiracy theory must be the Daddy of them all – The Phantom Time Hypothesis. In a Nutshell (pun intended) According to the Phantom Time Hypothesis theory, the period between 614 ad and 911AD didn’t exist; the history normally attributed to that time is either a misinterpretation or a deliberate falsification of the evidence. If this were true, Charlemagne (reigned 768-814) never existed and the...
Terms Coined from World War I
In wartime nations are often galvanised into frenzied action to innovate and invent in order to try to gain the upper hand in their struggle for survival. As well as technical innovation the language and grammer of war changes also. In this article we look at some of the terms, still in use today, that owe their origins to this conflict.
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society – The Recipe
You’ve read the book … now eat the recipe !!
The Rise of Football – The Beautiful Game
The Beautiful Game, complete with even medieval hooligans, is older than you might think.
Only in America … 10 Ridiculous Lawsuits
We all know that the Americans are a litigious lot but sometimes they really outdo themselves. In this article we’ve gathered together some of the more crazy lawsuits that our American cousins have embarked on.
The brain-wave-reading alarm clock that knows when to wake you up
If you’re tired of waking up feeling like you haven’t even been to bed, then a new alarm clock that reads your brain waves to pinpoint the best time to wake you up – so that (in theory, at least) you rise feeling fresh and raring to go – could be for you.
How did Farming Arrive in Europe ?
The first modern humans in Europe were hunter-gatherers who arrived around 40,000 years ago. But around 9,000 years ago the first farmers arrived. These farmers came from the Fertile Crescent in the Middle East – but how ?
What is the Gaia hypothesis?
You may have heard of the name ‘Gaia’ as the personification of the Earth, or mother Earth. But in this article we look at a serious hypothesis that relates to mother Earth as if she ‘acts’ as part of a global system.
The Knitting Industry in Guernsey
The knitting industry in Guernsey today is all but extinct. However there was a time when it used to be quite a sizable proportion of her GDP with the majority of her population involved in it in some way or another, both women and men.
Pontifications – answers to the fluff of everyday life
Some answers to the fluff of everyday life :
> Was the London Bobbie named after a real Bobby ?
> Was there ever any cocaine in Coca-Cola ?
> Why do we clink glasses when we say cheers ?
> Why do we say an outlaw is beyond the pale ?
> Why do we say that someone who is fired gets the sack ?
The Clock inside the Rock – How do they date ancient rock ?
Geologist often trot out some incredible facts without a second thought – “This rock is 4.4 billion years old…” said geologist Simon Wilde in 2001 as he introduced the oldest known piece of the Earth, but how did he know?
