ODDS, ENDS & INSPIRATION

z Pop art icon Andy Warhol once said: “It’s the movies that have really been running things in America since they were invented. They show you what to do, how to do it, when to do it, how to feel about it, and how to look when you feel about it.”

z Those who study such things say that by the year 2020, more data will be created in a single hour than had been created in the entire world over the 30,000 years leading up to the 21st century.

z A woman in Tennessee, USA was once arrested for biking while intoxicated – she was on a stationary bike at the gym at the time.

z When the Coca-cola Company first started marketing its product in China, the advertisements used Chinese symbols to spell out the brand’s name phonetically. It was only after the ads had been published that the marketers learned that those symbols spelled out the phrase “bite the wax tadpole”.

z Earthquakes occur at a rate of about one every minute around the world. About eight of those each year are considered to be major, registering above 7.0 on the Richter Scale.

z Velcro came to market in 1957, after a Swiss inventor named George De Mestral spent nearly 10 years developing the idea. His inspiration came to him in 1948 on a hike, when he had difficulty removing tenacious little burrs from his clothes. He reasoned that if he could create synthetic burrs, they could be used as fasteners.

z When Queen Elizabeth II – then Princess Elizabeth – wed Prince Philip, their wedding cake weighed a whopping 226kg.

NOW HERE’S A TIP

z Road-trip organisation: Put items you’ll need along the way into a laundry basket or two, which can be easily accessed during your trip. There’s no need to undo the Tetris-like organisation job of the other items, because everything you need to have at hand is in the basket. z “I love to work in the yard, and I always wash my hands before coming in. I put a bar of soap inside a piece of mesh from a potato sack and tie it with a string; then I tie the string to my outside tap. Now I can easily wash my hands with soap before coming in. The sack kind of works as a scrubber as well.” – contributed by F.A. z A tip for the coming summer: “If you want a lighter foundation for sun protection, try mixing a little foundation with a sunblock. It might take a bit of experimenting to find the right ratio for the coverage you want, but I find that the sunblock helps the foundation to glide on, and my face feels moisturised as well.” – T.L. z “I moved to a much smaller house and have very little storage, so now everything I keep must be necessary. I had several banker’s boxes of old papers that I had been storing for years. I still think there’s a chance I’d need to access the information in them, but I didn’t want to devote a lot storage space to boxes of documents. I bought a small scanner that you feed paper into, and I have used it to scan in all my papers. I’m down to a small box of keepsakes and originals that are important, and the rest is there digitally in case I ever need it.” – A.D.F.