haymee.com - stuff

I was going to call this 'Random Jottings' but I thinks that's got something to do with Hinge and Bracket... so it's just called the jotter. It's like the rough book you had at school, just a place to put random thoughts really, ones that don't fit anywhere else, or might become something else in time.

If... the actress playing Daphne in Frasier was somewhat lazy clearing up her garden one autumn, then might the headline read, "Jane Leeves leaves leaves"?

I quote from the Wikipedia entry on Concorde:
"Concorde went through two cycles of heating and cooling during a flight, first cooling down as it gained altitude, then heating up after going supersonic. The reverse happened when descending and slowing down. This had to be factored into the metallurgical modelling. Owing to the heat generated by compression of the air as Concorde traveled supersonically, the fuselage would extend by as much as 300 mm (almost 1 foot), the most obvious manifestation of this being a gap that opened up on the flight deck between the flight engineer's console and the bulkhead. On all the Concordes that had a supersonic retirement flight, the flight engineers placed their hats in this gap before it cooled, where the hats remain to this day. In the Seattle museum's Concorde a protruding cap was cut off by a thief in an apparent attempt to steal it, leaving a part behind. An amnesty led to the severed cap being returned; the museum has been examining options to reattach it in some way."

Ego-chariot: what better word for a pointless four-wheel drive vehicle?

Wives of King Henry VIII
Catharine of Aragon (1485 - 1536): Widow of Henry's brother Arthur. Mother of Queen Mary. Marriage annulled.
Anne Boleyn (1507 - 1536): Maid of honour to Catherine of Aragon. Mother of Queen Elizabeth I. Beheaded.
Jane Seymour (1509 - 1537): Lady-in-waiting to both Catherine and Anne. Died from complications after giving birth to Edward (King Edward VI). Henry VIII is buried alongside her at Windsor.
Anne of Cleves (1515 - 1557): Daughter of John, Duke of Cleves, from western Germany. Marriage annulled.
Catherine Howard (1522 - 1542): Beheaded because of extra-marital affairs.
Katherine Parr (1512 - 1548): Survived King Henry VIII.

"Tailor-made vandal guards for all types of cranes and earth-moving plant." Seen on a van on the M6. What a shame there has had to be an entire industry invented for these things.

When the weatherman tells us that it's "misty, murky and muggy", is there really mist, murk and mug out there?

"Whisky doesn't count. It's made from grain. I mean, it's practically muesli."

Each Time Zone is 15 degrees of latitude, give or take a few kinks around countries' borders. Australia is about 40 degrees across, and as you'd expect has three time zones. The most westerly time zone, called Australian Western Standard Time, is UTC (GMT or all practical purposes) +8, and Australian Eastern Standard Time is UTC +10. So you'd expect the one in the middle (Australian Central Standard Time) to be UTC +9, wouldn't you? I can see absolutely no logical reason, and nor can I find any official explanation on the interweb, for why it is UTC +9.5. Can you help?

links: time in australia

"Cuius testiculos habes, habeas cardia et cerebellum."
- When you have their *full attention* in your grip, their hearts and minds will follow.

The tagline I've just seen for a range of Italian pasta sauces says, "... brings the tastes and aromas of Italy into your home." Depends where in Italy, of course, but I've been to Rome in August, and those aromas are mainly... well... armpits, dog turds and Fiat exhaust fumes.

Interesting that the Americans refer to a particular period of history, or to events that occurred during it, as 'Victorian'.

A few palindromes:
Go hang a salami, I'm a lasagna hog;
A man, a plan, a canal: Panama;
Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas;
Sit on a potato pan, Otis

I generally prefer the second disc in a 2-CD box set. Why is that?

Does Tiff Needell live in Salisbury?

The best take-away coffee on the UK motorway network is from Coffee Nation machines which you will find in the shop at Welcome Break service areas.

A square meal comes from when the Admiralty specified square plates (presumably they were easier to stack); when your food touched all four sides you had a square meal. Incidentally, the raised edge of the plate is or was called the fiddle - so if you over-filled your plate you were on the fiddle.

Niblings is a fantastic made-up word. Instead of saying 'my brothers and sisters' you say 'my siblings'; and so instead of saying 'my nieces and nephews', why not 'my niblings'?

Revolution: turning something over e.g. revolving a lifeboat in a storm, or every time an engine turns over; revolution: Russia 1917 or pick your moment in history - overturning something.

What in Birmingham is the Custard Factory? It's very pink!

'Threat' is defined as capability + opportunity + intent.

One of those revelatory ahhhh moments: Brass Tacks (name of 1980s(?) BBC current affairs series) is actually Cockney rhyming slang for 'facts'.

Ridley Scott sounds like Sylvester McCoy.

Swindon police have a Lexus 4WD.