The most common birthday in the United States is Oct. 5.
That’s nine months after New Year’s Eve.
Society
Old Folks’ Homes
Countries with highest life expectancies:
- Andorra: 83.51 years
- San Marino: 81.71 years
- Singapore: 81.71 years
- Japan: 81.25 years
- Sweden: 80.51 years
- Switzerland: 80.51 years
- Australia: 80.50 years
- Iceland: 80.31 years
- Canada: 80.22 years
- Italy: 79.81 years
Expense Account
The German Bundestag has 614 members, but its official Web site lists 615. That’s because Jakob Maria Mierscheid doesn’t exist — he was invented in the 1920s by Weimar Social Democrats to avoid paying restaurant bills.
Like George P. Burdell, another nonexistent bon vivant, Mierscheid has quite a resume. He served as deputy chairman of the Committee for Small and Medium Sized Businesses in 1981 and 1982, and in 1983 he published a demonstration of the correlation between federal election results and West German industrial production.
Presumably he also goes out to lunch a lot.
Take Your Pick
Frivolous political parties around the world and their campaign promises:
- Denmark’s Union of Conscientiously Work-Shy Elements promised tailwinds on all cycle paths.
- Hungary’s Two-Tailed Dog Party promised eternal life, world peace, one work day per week, two sunsets a day, smaller gravitation, and low taxes.
- Sweden’s Donald Duck Party promised wider sidewalks and “free alcohol to the people.”
- England’s Death, Dungeons and Taxes Party promised the reintroduction of hanging, the annexation of France, and the reduction of the school leaving age to 9.
- America’s Guns and Dope Party would replace one-third of Congress with ostriches.
And Poland, Russia, Ukraine and Belarus all have Beer Lovers’ Parties.
“Politicians are the same all over,” said Nikita Khrushchev. “They promise to build a bridge even where there is no river.”
Rechtub Klat
It’s not only 007 who communicates in code. Butchers in Australia speak a secret language called Rechtub Klat (“butcher talk”), in which words are pronounced backward.
Why should butchers need a secret language? So they can talk about the customers:
- Kool, toh lrig = Look, hot girl
- Doog tsub = Good bust
- Doog esra = Good arse
- On doog cuf ecaf = No-good fuckface
Keep your ears open.
Meet the Neighbors
Cities with the most billionaires:
- New York: 35
- Los Angeles: 24
- Moscow: 20
- San Francisco: 20
- London: 19
- Hong Kong: 18
- Chicago: 12
- Paris: 12
- Dallas: 11
- Tokyo: 11
Bottoms Up
Beer consumption per capita, as of 2004, in liters per year:
- Czech Republic: 156.9
- Ireland: 131.1
- Germany: 115.8
- Australia: 109.9
- Austria: 108.3
- United Kingdom: 99.0
- Belgium: 93.0
- Denmark: 89.9
- Finland: 85.0
- Luxembourg: 84.4
Darwin, Australia, has the highest beer consumption of any city in the world. The average resident there drinks 230 liters, or about 60 gallons, of beer each year.
Good Company
Nobel laureates by country, as of July 2006:
- United States: 160
- United Kingdom: 110
- Germany: 92
- France: 44
- Switzerland: 25
- USSR and Russia: 21
- Italy: 19
- Canada: 18
- Sweden: 18
- Netherlands: 18
- Hungary: 16
- Denmark: 14
- Poland: 14
Worse Than High Heels
The Chinese practice of footbinding, popular since medieval times, was banned only in 1911. Young girls’ feet were wrapped in bandages to prevent them from growing longer than 4 inches. By age 3, four toes on each foot would break, often leading to infection, paralysis and atrophy. Some elderly Chinese women today still show disabilities.
Rowrrr!
“She is now in the vile embrace of the Apollo of the evening. Her head rests upon his shoulder, her face is upturned to his, her bare arm is almost around his neck, her partly nude swelling breast heaves tumultuously against his, face to face they whirl on, his limbs interwoven with hers, his strong right arm around her yielding form, he presses her to him until every curve in the contour of her body thrills with the amorous contact. Her eyes look into his, but she sees nothing; the soft music fills the room, but she hears it not; he bends her body to and fro, but she knows it not; his hot breath, tainted with strong drink, is on her hair and cheek, his lips almost touch her forehead, yet she does not shrink; his eyes, gleaming with a fierce, intolerable lust, gloat over her, yet she does not quail. She is filled with the rapture of sin in its intensity; her spirit is[Pg 16] inflamed with passion and lust is gratified in thought. With a last low wail the music ceases, and the dance for the night is ended, but not the evil work of the night.”
— From the Ball-Room to Hell by T.A. Faulkner, Ex-Dancing Master, Formerly Proprietor of the Los Angeles Dancing Academy and Ex-President of Dancing Masters’ Association of the Pacific Coast, 1892