Did you know that...

[Opsa]

Did you know that on this day 2oo years ago the first edition of Grimms' Fairy Tales was published (and flopped)?

So just remember- take heart, true genius takes a long time to be recognized.

_{Fascinating about the musk ox.}

[Sibling DavidH]

DYKT Jakob Grimm was never seen to work?   He swanned around the university all day, socialising, and nobody could find when he did his masses of ground-breaking work on Indo-European and Germanic philology.  Plus collecting the folk-legends.

[Swatopluk]

His brother did most of the tale collection.

The key to success for the fairy tales was threefold
1. Dropping the scholarly annotations etc.
2. Adding illustrations
3. Reducing the number of tales by half (keeping the rest for the sequel)

Btw, with each edition the tales got rewritten including escalating bowdlerisation. To give just one example: The original Little Red Riding Hood contained explicit cannibalism, an invitation to lesbian incest and strong hints at sexual intercourse with animals. There was no happy ending (except for the wolf).

[Opsa]

Oh! Was he a lesbian cannibal?

[Swatopluk]

No, he ate only parts of granny and (disguised as granny) served the rest to LRRH. Then he invited her to bed with words that in the original French are rather unambiguous. As punishment for her eating granny's flesh and drinking her blood and then following the dirty invitation to bed, the wolf eats LRRH. End of story. It's not told whether he ate her after or instead of sex.

[Sibling DavidH]

Before would be a good trick.

[Swatopluk]

That would have to be a mixture of oral and aural sex.

---

Did you know that in a facility near Melbourne 40000 hand-knitted pullovers are stored...for penguins?

[Opsa]

I did not. Where's the proof?

[Swatopluk]

I got the number from today's German newspapers but there are quite a few English links on the topic itself (without specifying the number).

e.g.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/wear/6367787.stm
http://www.hic-et-nunc-society.de/english/projects/pullover-for-penguins/

Here is one also stating the number
http://voxxnova.com/news/40000-jackets-for-the-penguins-tied-the-women-of-europe/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSr4hdVGCu8 (German)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pqsxjgBjCQ (English)

[Griffin NoName]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2012/12/100_things_we_didnt_know_last_7.shtml

[Sibling DavidH]

Did you know that today is 31/1/13 - at least for us Brits, who note dates logically.  1/31/13 is not so neat for Murkins. 

[Opsa]

Whotta rip off! We Murkins plan to sue! 

[Aggie]

Did you know that today is 31/1/13 - at least for us Brits, who note dates logically.  1/31/13 is not so neat for Murkins.  

God bless the Queen on our quarters, I'm Canadian and can choose to use either system.   Typical usage here is Amrikan, but I've always gotten away with the British usage.

[Opsa]

D'oh, we'd sue the Canadians too, but they are our only land access to good beer. Them and the Mexicans.

Heck, everybody does better beer than we do. We shall sue for beer!

[Aphos]

Canadians could have had the culture of England, the cuisine of France and the know-how of the United States.

Instead, they ended up with the culture of the United States, the cuisine of England and the know-how of France.

(apologies to all Canadians)