Personal Calls

Tiny Norfolk Island in the South Pacific has the world’s only telephone directory that lists people by nickname.

In 2007 these included Beef, Blitti, Booda, Bubby, Bugs, Bunt, Cane Toad, Carrots, Chilla, Chinny, Crowbar, Dar Bizziebee, Derms, Devil, Diddles, Diesel, Doby, Doodus, Dussa, Fishy, Frenzy, Gags, Geek, Girlie, Goof, Golla, Grin, Gumboots, Hat, Honkey-Dorey, Hose, Kik Kik, Kissard, Knuckles, Lettuce Leaf, Little Pooh, Loppy, Massport, Monkey, Moo, Nippa, Nuffka, Onion, Paw Paw, Philly, Plute, Possum, Puddles, Puffa, Pumbles, Pumpa, Pusswah, Rubber Duck, Skeeters, Slack, Smudgie, Snobbles, Sputt, Steggles, Storky, Toofy, Toyboy, Trigger, Truck, Ummy, Wiggy, and Yarm.

Many of the island’s residents are descended from the Bounty mutineers, who resettled from the Pitcairn Islands in 1856. Their European surnames are so common on the island that many go by adopted names.

UPDATE: I’m told that the Spanish village of Villanueva del Trabuco, in Andalucía, has a nickname-based phone directory that runs to 30 pages. The population is 5,000, about twice that of Norfolk Island.

(Thanks, Toño and Lucía.)

| Oddities

“A Horse Found Swimming in the Ocean”

Capt. Edwards, of the fishing smack Amelia, reports that when off ‘Skunnett,’ on the Rhode Island shore, some time since, he discovered an object swimming off his bow which he finally made out to be a horse. He made sail but could not overhaul the animal, which was making desperate struggles to reach the main land three miles away. At times he would disappear from sight in the waves which broke over him,–the sea running very high at the time,–but a moment later would reappear, and with a loud snort and toss of the head, would shake off the water from his ears and eyes, and then renew the struggle. At last he made the shore, and, without pausing a moment, dashed up the beach, his long tail and curling mane floating outward on the wind. The splendid animal was possessed of immense strength, else he could not have swam that long distance in such a sea. Where he came from nobody knows. No vessel was in sight from which he could have escaped.

— James Baird McClure, ed., Entertaining Anecdotes From Every Available Source, 1879

| Oddities

Culture Wars

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hajos.jpg

The Olympics used to include art competitions. Between 1912 and 1952, medals were awarded in architecture, literature, music, painting, and sculpture; even the Soviets contributed art to the 1924 Paris games, though they disdained the sporting events as “bourgeois.” An exhibition at the 1932 games drew 384,000 visitors to the Los Angeles Museum of History, Science and Art.

All works had to be inspired by sports; those ranked highest received gold, silver, and bronze medals. The categories included epic literature, chamber music, watercolors, and statuary; the 1928 games even included a competition in town planning.

In two cases champion athletes also won art competitions. Hungarian swimmer Alfréd Hajós, left, who had won two gold medals in Athens in 1896, took home a silver medal for designing a stadium in 1924. And American Walter Winans won gold both as a marksman in 1908 and as a sculptor in 1912.

In 1954 the art competitions were dropped because most of the participants were professionals, which was held to conflict with the ideals of the games. But the Olympic charter still requires hosts to include a cultural program “to promote harmonious relations, mutual understanding and friendship among the participants and others attending the Olympic Games.”

| History

Room Service

On July 17, 1945, Suite 212 of Claridge’s Hotel in London became part of Yugoslavia.

Queen Alexandra was giving birth, and Winston Churchill made the concession so that the new prince could be born on Yugoslavian soil.

| Oddities

No Further Questions

Unidentified court transcript quoted by Rodney R. Jones in Disorderly Conduct: Verbatim Excerpts From Actual Cases, 1987:

Counsel: Could you briefly describe the type of construction equipment used in your business?

Witness: Four tractors.

Counsel: What kind of tractors are they?

Witness: Fords.

Counsel: Did you say “four”?

Witness: Ford. Ford. Like the Ford. It is a Ford tractor.

Counsel: You didn’t say “four,” you just said “Ford”?

Witness: Yes, Ford. That is what you asked me, what kind of tractors.

Counsel: Are there four Ford tractors? Is that what it is?

Witness: No, no. You asked me what kind of a tractor it was and I said Ford tractors.

Counsel: How many tractors are there?

Witness: Four.

| Crime

No Waiting

http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=XYYHAAAAEBAJ

Joe Armstrong’s 2000 patent application is a model of clarity:

“The amusement apparatus is operated by one user for self-kicking the user’s buttocks, or an alternative embodiment allows one user to operate the crank while a second person positions himself to receive a paddling of his buttocks for entertainment of observers.”

He adds that an LCD can display kicks per minute, and the whole apparatus can be folded for storage. Kudos.

| Technology

Person to Person

Suppose that you enter a cubicle in which, when you press a button, a scanner records the states of all the cells in your brain and body, destroying both while doing so. This information is then transmitted at the speed of light to some other planet, where a replicator produces a perfect organic copy of you. Since the brain of your Replica is exactly like yours, it will seem to remember living your life up to the moment when you pressed the button, its character will be just like yours, and it will be in every other way psychologically continuous with you. Is it you?

— Derek Parfit, “Divided Minds and the Nature of Persons,” in Mindwaves, 1987

| Science & Math