A bewildering riddle by the English statesman Charles James Fox (he of the widely spaced aunts):
I went to the Crimea; I stopped there, and I never went there, and I came back again. What am I?
Symmetric Milestones
What’s unusual about these numbers?
Each series is spaced evenly on the number line:
Each number is a palindrome.
And each is prime.
Strike Three
After cataloging her disappointment with Europe, Asia, and Australia, xenophobic travel writer Favell Lee Mortimer finished her world survey with Far Off, Part II: Africa and America Described (1854). What did she discover about the intriguing people and exotic customs of these remote continents?
- “It is a rare thing in Egypt to speak the truth.”
- “Those who wish to visit Nubia ought to go there in a boat, for there is no other pleasant way.”
- “Perhaps there is no Christian country in the world as ignorant as Abyssinia.”
- “Cruelty is the chief vice of the Caffre.”
- “Newfoundland is a dreary abode.”
- “Though Mexico is so beautiful at a distance, yet the streets are narrow and loathsome, and the poor people, walking in them, look like bundles of old rags.”
“Washington is one of the most desolate cities in the world: not because she is in ruins, but for the opposite reason — because she is unfinished. There are places marked out where houses ought to be, but where no houses seem ever likely to be.”
Seahenge
In 1998, tides exposed a ring of Bronze Age timbers off the coast of Norfolk.
The monument appears to have been created in 2049 B.C., probably in a salt marsh that was later overrun by the sea.
What was its purpose? Who knows?
In a Word
latibulate
v. to hide oneself in a corner
Good News!
[A]dvertising will in the future world become gradually more and more intelligent in tone. It will seek to influence demand by argument instead of clamour, a tendency already more apparent every year. Cheap attention-calling tricks and clap-trap will be wholly replaced, as they are already being greatly replaced, by serious exposition; and advertisements, instead of being mere repetitions of stale catch-words, will be made interesting and informative, so that they will be welcomed instead of being shunned; and it will be just as suicidal for a manufacturer to publish silly or fallacious claims to notoriety as for a shopkeeper of the present day to seek custom by telling lies to his customers.
— T. Baron Russell, A Hundred Years Hence, 1906
The Family Business
On her Broadway debut in 1940, Diana Barrymore wired her father, John:
DEAREST DADDY, THANK YOU FOR THE APPLE FLOWERS AND WIRES … SO DADDY DARLING I AM DOING MY BEST TO CARRY ON THIS STINKING TRADITION.
Herbert Blythe had adopted the name Maurice Barrymore in 1872 to spare his father the “shame” of having a son in such a “dissolute” vocation as acting.
His great-granddaughter, Drew Barrymore, has earned more than $1 billion in box-office grosses at age 35.
The Mystery of Muller Hill
In 1808, a French gentleman bought 2,700 acres in Georgetown, N.Y., and erected a chateau on the highest hill. Evidently he was massively wealthy, landscaping the grounds extensively and ordering a hamlet built on the estate, after the fashion of the great French nobles. And he seemed fearful for his safety, securing the house against gunfire and clearing the woods around it.
He roved the estate on horseback, attended by armed servants, and was described as erect, agile, and commanding. When asked to muster for the local militia he responded with outrage, saying he had led a division and participated in making three treaties, but he gave no other clues to his identity. He followed closely the progress of the War of 1812 and of Napoleon, whose ascendancy he evidently feared; when the Corsican met disaster in Russia he returned abruptly to France.
Who was this man? He gave his name as Louis Anathe Muller, but he guarded his true identity closely. Was he a French duke? A son of Charles X? The future king himself? With only circumstantial evidence, there’s no way to be certain. After Waterloo he sold the estate for a fraction of its value, and he never returned to New York.
Safe and Sound
“Nobody now fears that a Japanese fleet could deal an unexpected blow on our Pacific possessions. … Radio makes surprise impossible.”
— Josephus Daniels, former U.S. secretary of the navy, Oct. 16, 1922
Escape From Elephantistan
Well, you’ve gone and murdered someone again. And this time you’ve done it in Elephantistan, which is renowned for its peculiar justice system.
The jury is divided, so you will decide your own fate. You’re presented with two urns, each of which contains 25 white balls and 25 black ones. Blindfolded, you must choose an urn at random and then draw a ball from it; a black ball means death, but a white one means you go free.
Tradition gives you the option to distribute the balls however you like between the two urns before you don the blindfold. This is thought to be a formality, as the total proportion of white balls to black does not change.
What should you do?