Sideswipe: May 28: I spy with my big eyes and froggy mouth

I spy with my big eyes and froggy mouth ...

Fun times with anaesthesia

"Last year they were knocking me out for a colonoscopy. It was the third time I had been put under in a year and I was curious ... I had heard that when they knock you out you are still awake for awhile, you just don't remember. So in the spirit of science I proposed a test with the anaesthesiologist: When she started the medicine I would begin counting backward. When I would wake up we would compare what I remembered to what she observed. Plunger down — 99, 98, 97 — I remembered nothing more. Minutes later I awoke. The anaesthesiologist spied me and came over quickly. 'What did you remember?' she asked. '97'. She began laughing. 'You got down to 7!'

Propaganda that stuck

1. That teeth are supposed to be perfectly white ... cue expensive whitening toothpastes.

2. That you must have an engagement ring ... In Germany you buy a ring when you get engaged and wear on the left hand. When you get married you switch it to the right hand.

3. That KFC is a Christmas food. In the 80s KFC ran a Christmas-themed ad in Japan, and to this day the Japanese eat KFC on Christmas.

Napoleon Bonaparte.

4. That Napoleon Bonaparte was short. He was 5ft 7in (170.18cm) tall which might be a little bit on the shorter side by modern standards, but it was around the average height for people back then. The idea that he was short actually came from a British propaganda campaign to mock him. (Via askreddit.com)