1. When people started looking for alternatives to ivory in the 1800s, billiard balls were made of newly discovered celluloid. Unfortunately, it was a flammable-enough material that a hard strike of the ball would make it explode.
2.After consulting an exorcist, a Catholic school in Tennessee has banned Harry Potter books because they contain "real" curses and spells.
3. In order to promote safe driving, Bhutan has rhyming roadsigns with slogans including "After drinking whisky, driving is risky", "For safe arriving, no liquor in driving" and "On the bend, go slow friend".
4. Pop songs have been getting shorter, in part because online streaming services, like Spotify, pay artists for the number of times a song is listened to. The thinking is, shorter the song, the more likely people are to listen to it often.
5. Linguists have discovered that the word "huh?" is used to mean the same thing in almost every language. (Source: Quite Interesting @qikipedia)
Flour bombs away!
It was 38 years ago today when the third and deciding rugby test of the 1981 Springbok tour at Eden Park, Auckland, was being played. As was typical of this tour, the on-field action was overshadowed by protests elsewhere. According to NZ History, security around the ground was the tight but Marx Jones and Grant Cole took their anti-tour protest to new heights in a hired Cessna aircraft. While protesters on the ground fired flares, Jones and Cole peppered Eden Park with flour bombs in an attempt to halt the game. Against this surreal backdrop, the rugby continued. When All Black prop Gary Knight was felled by a flour bomb, South African captain Wynand Claassen asked if New Zealand had an air force. The All Blacks won 25-22 thanks to an injury-time penalty goal by Allan Hewson.
'Classic' coffee moment
From the Guardian: " I was recently in a coffee shop when I heard the barista shout: "Cappuccino for Spartacus." Sadly, only one person stood up, but it made my day."
