Moved countries and found eggs stacked on an ordinary aisle shelf at room temperature, next to the flour. At home they were always in the chilled section and everyone puts them in the fridge. Both places seem to be…
Staying in Ireland this month and the light switch for the bathroom is on the hallway wall, outside the door. I remembered noticing the same thing in a few other European countries, and being mildly annoyed by it each…
I wash my hands thoroughly and I prefer a bar of soap. In most places this is unremarkable. But in a few of the places I have stayed, I cannot seem to rinse the soap off at all after lathering, the slippery feeling…
You have seen the genre. Every few months a list circulates claiming that in some particular place it remains illegal to carry an ice cream cone in your back pocket, or that a spouse's permission is required for…
A picture went round my feed this week showing a road that had been built curving around a large tree rather than through it, offered as proof that this sort of thing is possible. It looks plausible and it also looks a…
Take a long day on the bike: twenty hours of riding, plus a normal resting metabolism, adding up to something like sixteen thousand kilocalories expended. Over the same day I might eat three thousand. So there is a…
A colleague pointed at a line in my status update that said I check this everyday and told me it should be two words. I have written it as one word since school and I now cannot unsee it in anything I have ever sent. Is…
Long standing open problems attract solution announcements regularly. Most get dismissed within days, sometimes within hours, and often by people who clearly have not read the whole manuscript. That looks dismissive…
I accept that exercise is good for you and I would like to understand the mechanism, because on the face of it, it seems to work against how things usually behave. A pair of shoes worn every day wears out; the same pair…
New to me car, and after filling up the needle doesn't move at all for what feels like ages, then it starts dropping normally, then the last quarter disappears alarmingly fast. First car I've had that does this so…
Advertisements keep appearing for services selling a tiny plot of land in Scotland, on the basis that owning land there historically carried a title, so buying a souvenir plot entitles you to style yourself Lord or…
Several junctions in my area have been converted to roundabouts over the past decade, and this seems to be happening in a lot of places. Locally the reaction is close to universally negative: people find them confusing…
I have washed chicken under the tap my entire adult life because that is what I was taught at home, and apparently the advice is now the opposite. What I cannot tell is which of these kitchen and household rules are…
Happened twice this week in the same hotel. Shower is fine, then a distant flush, then about two seconds later it goes genuinely painful and I'm pressed against the tile. It settles back down after twenty seconds or so.…
Stood in a queue behind someone ordering at Panda Express and noticed the shrimp dish carries a surcharge over the standard entrees even though the box is the same size. Same thing happens at burrito places with the…
A cheque and an online transfer both landed in my account on Friday. The balance updated straight away and the app showed the money, then underneath it said the funds wouldn't be available until Tuesday. If the bank…
I put a good sourdough loaf in the fridge to stop it going mouldy in a humid week, and by day two it was drier and tougher than an identical loaf I left in a paper bag on the counter for four days. That seems backwards,…
My electricity bill has gone up enough that I want to do something about it, and my dad is adamant that leaving chargers plugged in is quietly costing me a fortune. I have about twelve things on standby around the flat:…