• A blind hawker called Freddy or Freddie who lived in Sydney in the 1920s;  or
• A police officer, Sir Frederick William Pottinger, who was in charge of the Lachlan district. The success of bushranger Ben Hall in evading capture there in 1862 earned Pottinger the name “Blind Freddy”.  Here is the obituary of Sir Pottinger with no reference to Blind Freddy though.

Take your pick …

The name “Peeping Tom” for a voyeur originates from later versions of this legend in which a man named Tom had watched her ride and was struck blind or dead.

The name ‘Peeping Tom’ is first recorded in the Coventry city accounts in 1773, recording a new wig and paint for the effigy of Tom the Tailor (which clearly must have existed for some time prior to that).

Lady Godiva was an actual historical figure and is mentioned in various ancient records, including the Domesday survey of 1085. There’s some justification to regard her as a patron of the town, although some accounts dispute this. She married Leofric in 1040 and in 1043 she persuaded him to build a Benedictine monastery at Coventry.

For more information visit here >>

The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) created the awards program in order to recognize outstanding achievement and to encourage excellence in all areas of filmmaking.

The first Academy Awards ceremony was held on May 16, 1929. It was a quiet affair compared to the glamor and glitz that accompany the ceremonies of today.   After a dinner of Filet of Sole Saute au Buerre and Half Broiled Chicken on Toast, Douglas Fairbanks, the president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, stood up and gave a speech. Then, with the help of William C. deMille, he called the winners up to the head table and handed them their awards.

The statuette was designed by Cedric Gibbons, art director for MGM studios, and was sculpted by George Stanley. The statuette is a knight standing on a reel of film with his hands gripping a sword and the design has varied very little over the years.

Ironically, Gibbons received the award 11 times out of 39 nominations, second only to Walt Disney who won 26 times. The statuette’s nickname of Oscar has unknown origins but there are two stories doing the rounds.  The most common story is that of AMPAS librarian Margaret Herrick commenting that it resembled her Uncle Oscar. The AMPAS official name for the statuette is the Academy Award.

Another common story involves actress and two-time Academy Award winner Bette Davis, who reportedly named it after her ex-husband, Harmon Oscar Nelson, Jr.

Some Oscar trivia:

• The only person actually called Oscar to win one is Oscar Hammerstein II, who picked up two best song awards.
•  The most nominated performer is Meryl Streep, with 17 nominations and winning twice.
• The Oscars haven’t always been gold (not that they are real gold, they are britannium, a tin-based alloy,which is then gold plated). During the WWII years, they were made of plaster to show support for the war effort; ventriloquist Edgar Bergen’s honorary Oscar was made of wood, while Disney’s special Oscar for Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs came complete with seven little dwarf ones.  Mr Disney was presented his Oscar(s) by Shirley Temple in 1938.  See picture below.

Picture Credit

• From 1950 the academy requires winners to sign a contract stating that neither they nor their heirs will sell an Oscar without first offering it to the academy for $1.  Oscars won prior to 1950 can and have been sold to the public.
• George C. Scott who won in 1971 for his portrayal of General Patton refused his award and said that the politics surrounding the award was “demeaning” and that the Oscar ceremony was “a two-hour meat parade.”

If you want to watch the Oscars live – you can watch it here http://oscar2012live.com/

Enjoy

Yesterday on 4BC Afternoons, Lindsay asked how fast does electricity travel?  Really fast we all thought.   Not so.  Not so.   Electricity travels at less than 1 cm per minute – it is practically crawling!    An electrical wire works a lot like a water hose which is full of water and the gun on the nozzle is deactivated.  As soon as you pull the trigger water gushes out.   Electricity is a lot like that.   All the electrons are lined up and are under voltage pressure waiting to be released.   As soon as you flick a switch the electricity is released.

“Dry Cleaning”

Loretta also wanted to know “Is dry cleaning really dry, and if so how does it clean your clothes?”    Interesting question.  I’m sure a lot of people don’t really know how it works.   With dry cleaning your clothes are immersed in a liquid (a solvent).  The reason it is called dry, is the liquid is NOT “wet” with water.

In the early days of dry cleaning the solvent used was often kerosene or gasoline.  Today perchloroethylene is almost universally used.  The clothes are washed in this solvent and then the solvent is recovered in an extractor so it can be reused and not evaporate into the atmosphere.

Here is a video showing the “Dry” cleaning process.  Like me, you will probably be amazed to see that your clothes are all tumbling around in liquid.  Who knew?

A little history of dry cleaning:   Dry cleaning was discovered in the mid-19th century by French dye-works owner Jean Baptiste Jolly, who noticed that his tablecloth became cleaner after his maid spilled kerosene on it. He subsequently developed a service cleaning people’s clothes in this manner, which became known as “nettoyage à sec,” or “dry cleaning”.

• Where is the largest bell in the world?
• How wide and how tall is it?
• Can we hear a recording of it?
• Is there a recording of different bells from around the world, like a CD or something?

Hills are mostly formed by nature.  They can be formed by a build up of rock debris or sand deposited by glaciers and wind.   Hills can also be created by the faults (cracks in the earth) which can cause earthquakes.  They are also caused by erosion and volcanoes.  When a volcano erupts the ash and lava that comes out of it can also form a hill.   Lastly, humans make hills by digging soil up and dumping in a giant pile.

Land will never be perfectly flat because the earth is always moving and creating hills, mountains and valleys.

This is an interesting question and almost as interesting as smoke signals themselves.   In cowboy and Indian movies they depicted the Indians as sending complicated shape shifting alphabet messages, however this isn’t the way it really was (it did look good on TV though).

Basically each tribe had its own code and other tribes couldn’t interpret their messages.   To get a message over a very long distance they would set up a chain of fires and each one would pass the message to the next, to the next until it reached the destination.

Chinese soldiers on the Great Wall of China also used smoke signals to let other lookouts along the wall know of any impending attacks.

If you want to know more about smoke signals and specifically how to send your own smoke signals take a visit to How Stuff Works  and you will soon be communicating with smoke!!

Despite research about brain function, intelligence, and artistic talent, no one has been able to figure out why less than one person in six is left-handed.  Scientists have worked out what makes a person favour one hand over another, just not the reason it is mainly the right hand.

It could be possible that the reasons go back to the days of the caveman.    A person who was born right-handed would fight with a weapon in his right hand and use his left hand to shield himself; a left-handed person would fight with his left hand and shield himself with his right hand.    Can you guess why this might have some bearing on it?     Well, if you are using your weapon with your right hand your left hand is shielding your heart, which happens to be on the left side.   In a left handed person the heart would remain unprotected and they would more than likely suffer wounds around their heart and die.

Over the course of evolution, this higher survival rate among right-handed persons could have led to more people being born right-handed because the incidence of left and right handedness is mostly hereditary.

Did you know Valentine’s Day has been celebrated since the 2nd Century, but not always as we know it today?   The true history of St Valentine’s Day is not clear and there are many stories as to how it came about.    It is believed, the holiday originated from the ancient Roman festival of Lupercalis/Lupercalia, a fertility celebration that used to be observed annually on February 15.  This was quite a violent ritual which involved the killing of animals and the whipping of women with the animal skins.  Not pretty, but it is believed the whipping caused the women to become more fertile.

In 496 AD, Pope Gelasius turned Lupercalia into a Christian feast day and set its observance a day earlier, on February 14. He proclaimed February 14 to be the feast day in honor of Saint Valentine, a Roman martyr who lived in the 3rd century. It is this St. Valentine whom the modern Valentine’s Day honors.

there are many different versions of how St Valentine came to be honoured and the most popular originates back in the 3rd Century when Emperor Claudius II decided that single men made better soldiers than those with wives and families and he outlawed marriage for young men.  Bishop Valentine, who realised the injustice of the order, went behind Claudius back and performed secret marriages for young lovers. When Valentine was found out Claudius sentenced him to death.

History becomes blurry here and there are many stories from Valentine’s stay in jail.   For example, Valentine was killed for attempting to help Christians escape harsh Roman prisons, where they were often beaten and tortured. According to one legend, an imprisoned Valentine actually sent the first “valentine” greeting himself after he fell in love with a young girl–possibly his jailor’s daughter–who visited him during his confinement. Before his death, it is alleged that he wrote her a letter signed “From your Valentine,” an expression that is still in use today. Although the truth behind the Valentine legends will never be known, what is known is his appeal as a sympathetic, heroic and, most importantly, romantic figure. Valentine became one of the most popular saints in England and France.

For more Valentine’s Day origins you can read additional information here and here.

Happy Valentines Day – may your day be filled with love and chocolate.   Speaking of chocolate, you might enjoy this video on the history of chocolate.  May your God bless the Aztecs!  Enjoy

One of my tweeps, @drdrdr09, mentioned that a colleague of his has written a great article about how to fix this and how to prevent it in the future.     With the permission of Heather Townsend, author of the article below, I have included it on my website for your reference.   You can read more of Heather’s work here

What to do if your Twitter Account Is Hacked…