5 things we41 learned this week

By Jon Connell of daily online newsletter

1

The ancient Persians had an unusual way of making laws. According to the historian Herodotus, they would deliberate on important matters while drunk, and then reconsider the following day when sober. Only if the same result was achieved on both occasions would the decision they made stand.

2

Albert Einstein took a nononsense approach to his critics. In response to his theory of relativity, a group of sceptics published a pamphlet entitled 100 Authors Against Einstein. When informed, Einstein is said to have responded: ‘Why a hundred? If I were wrong, one would have been enough.’

3

Cate Blanchett has been given the go-ahead to put 90 solar panels around her £5million formerly abandoned East Sussex mansion, which stands in 13 acres. However, the Hollywood actress – pictured above – has been told that ‘mitigation’ is needed to protect great-crested newts that would be affected by digging trenches for cables. 4 George Orwell had a

peculiar taste in food. His biographer D.J. Taylor has told how the Nineteen Eighty-Four author’s wife once went out for the night leaving a shepherd’s pie in the oven for him and a dish of eels on the floor for the cat. ‘She came home to find that Orwell had eaten the eels.’

5

Striking actors in Hollywood have strict rules about what they can wear on Halloween this year. Dressing up as characters from movies such as Barbie or Oppenheimer would promote studios against which actors are in dispute. Instead, they are encouraged to wear costumes ‘inspired by generalised characters and figures (ghost, zombie, spider, etc)’, said the actors’ union Sag-Aftra.