NWR Silly little things that delight you

Colin Bradley said:
The hippopotamus is a ludicrously imprecise unit of measurement. What sex is it? What age? Is it a fine specimen or a runt? How well-fed? Typical Grauniad.

When I was at school our physics master was scathing of anyone who cited a quantity without also specifying the unit of measurement. “56 what?” he’d say: “Yards of tripe? Buckets of steam?”
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Possibly interesting to know that traditional Balinese houses were built in accordance with the size of the first owner - for example, using his arm span for the width of gates, his reach for height of doors and his feet for other measurements.
 
Putin’s successors may come to regret the precedent he has set for “unilateral border revision”. China’s list of “unreturned” territories includes a chunk of the Russian Far East much larger than Ukraine, which was taken by the Tsar from the Qing dynasty in three “unequal treaties” of the 19th century. Chinese maps have recently started printing the historic name for Vladivostok: “Sea Cucumber Village”.
 
Alistair Scott said:
What size and type of astronauts are we talking? Gender? Contortionist or prop, linebacker or jockey. Be precise, boy!
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Three male and one female I believe. One of them is called "Butch" so could have the build of a prop. Anyway, here's a photo of the capsule in the sea with what looks like an average sized human on the side of it.


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And for comparison, here is a human on the back of a hippopotamus.

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Richard Zambuni said:
This nonsense from a Luis Gutierrez review of Tondonia Reserva 2013 '2013 was a rainy year, with 753 liters of it, well above the average of 530 liters in Haro.' It seems that more rain falls on the moon than in Haro.
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Falling

falling

falling
into a bear trap I haven't spotted

For every square metre of horizontal surface area, 1 millimetre of rainfall will produce 1 litre of water.
 
Winston Churchill was an admirable boozer, says Carol Midgley in The Times. While visiting Lake Como with his daughter and his doctor Lord Moran in 1945, the trio polished off 96 bottles of champagne across the two-week trip. That adds up to 576 glasses, or 192 each. Spread over the fortnight, that works out at around 14 glasses a day. Presumably for the former prime minister, this was on top of his six or seven daily brandies and whiskies. He had just led Britain to victory in a war, but still, “you can’t say that isn’t impressive".
 
Alistair Scott said:
Winston Churchill was an admirable boozer, says Carol Midgley in The Times. While visiting Lake Como with his daughter and his doctor Lord Moran in 1945, the trio polished off 96 bottles of champagne across the two-week trip. That adds up to 576 glasses, or 192 each. Spread over the fortnight, that works out at around 14 glasses a day. Presumably for the former prime minister, this was on top of his six or seven daily brandies and whiskies. He had just led Britain to victory in a war, but still, “you can’t say that isn’t impressive".
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Did he pay for any of them?
No More Champagne: Churchill and His Money
is a fascinating read.
 
Churchill was notoriously perpetually indebted, wasn't he? William Pitt the Younger was too. Margaret Thatcher wasn't flush with money when she left office either (although that did change later). And, as Paul hints, there was...
 
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