Comments by "Big Blue" (@bigblue6917) on "Today I Found Out" channel.

  1. The city of Bristol in the UK has a building called the Exchange. On the outside wall is a clock which was installed in 1822. The clock has two minute hands. One, painted red, shows GMT while the other, in black, shows Bristol time. Bristol time is ten minutes ahead of GMT. So when it's twelve noon GMT it is 12.10 Bristol time.
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  2. I remember reading that the Roman barbers used to dry shave their customers, so being cut while shaving was a daily occurrence. One Roman said that after visiting his barber he looked like a gladiator fresh from the arena. Something I can sympathise with when I took up shaving with a straight edge razor. When the Roman general Hadrian became emperor he wore a beard, as was the fashion in the army. You can imagine how quickly Roman men followed that fashion.
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  3. In Anglo Saxon England they had a problem with wolves and bear digging up the dead because the graves where only shallow. So they started digging them deeper to stop them detecting the bodies.
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  4. During WW2 people were told to add boiling hot water straight into the pot and keep the pot as close to the kettle as possible. Unfortunately this led to a number of accidents when people held pots which were then dropped and hot tea went everywhere, with people being scolded. The reason for this advice was because during the war the quality of the tea was very poor and this was the best way of making it. This will have been why Orwell gave this same advice as Britain was still being rationed. With better quality teas we have today you are advised is to let it just come off the boil before pouring. This same advice is given for coffee as well. Tea and coffee taste much better if not scolded. Thermic shock, hot water being added to the cup, originally related to porcelain because of its fine quality making it susceptible to damage. But you have to wonder whether this was more to do with them getting cracked by heavy handed servants then anything which came about through hot tea being poured into the cup. Especially as several minutes had passed between the hot water being added to the teapot and then being poured into the cup. And how long before the same excuse was give for other cups becoming damaged.
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