Things you were shockingly old when you learned

From 1925 to 1934, the Eiffel Tower was covered by big-ass illuminated Citroen signs on three sides:

https://static.messynessychic.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Screen-shot-2012-02-22-at-18.52.19.png

whaaaat.

yep.

That looks kind of sick.

wait until you read about the hollywood sign... 8)

I knew that "Trapper John MD" was a spinoff of "MASH". I never saw it or knew much about it. I was surprised to learn that it takes place 28 years after the events of "MASH" and that the titular character was not played by the same actor as in "MASH".

There was also a shortlived MASH sequel called Aftermash. It focuses on Colonel Potter, Klinger & Father Mulcahy.

is it set 29 years after mash

And the "Trapper John" tv show wasn't based on the character from the M*A*S*H tv show, but from the M*A*S*H movie.

I was trying to think who was who in that. Is this an approximation of Elliot Gould?

Not shockingly, but just learned that Simon Frith is an OBE while trying to find what I thought was his quote about Sonic Youth - "smart people playing stupid music", or something like that. Anyway, I couldn't bring to mind any other 'rock critic' who had been similarly honoured.

I was wondering if the MASH thing had more to do with the book. Was trying to think if there had been a more famous book that the film was based on the popularity of. & there is a whole run of them. Think I must have seen a few of them around way bacck.
series by Richard Hooker.

Had been thinking that if it was written by somebody who had been through that war it would have been 20 something years later in the 70s.
So Trapper John M.D. would be at that stage at the time. Roughly

only this year - learned that fungi are not classed as part of the plant kingdom, they're their own separate thing

wait until you hear about algae

I found out last week about lichen being symbiotic entities of fungi and algae and bacteria instead of just being some weird scaliness on trees and rocks.

what a world

All my life I’ve just sort of accepted that palm trees are a very weird kind of tree and only recently learned that they’re not real trees at all, botanically speaking. The clues were all there: their trunks don’t grow wider in the way that tree trunks do; their fronds grow only from one central location; they don’t have bark, etc.

Ha! Never thought of that, but yeah of course....
Some kind of giant dinosaur ferns or something...

Apparently there's no such thing as a tree:
https://eukaryotewritesblog.com/2021/05/02/theres-no-such-thing-as-a-tree/amp/

omg

The actor who played Trapper John in "Trapper John, M.D." also played Adam, the often-absent brother on "Bonanza." I always thought he had the coolest name: Pernell Roberts.

Interestingly, I just learned, having looked up his Wikipedia page, that he was an activist, and participated (among other things) in the Selma to Montgomery march in 1965.

Good looking hunk a man, too

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ee/c3/d3/eec3d36816918603302d7bc120d43219.jpg

saw him recently as a mercenary in an episode of mission: impossible

The Going for Gold theme tune was written by Hans Zimmer?

lol, fuck sake

that was still later than him doing a Band-Aid-style charity single complaining that although Dr Who’s cancellation had been cancelled, it was still going to take too long to restart production, so they should cancel something popular to make room for it

Bone china contains bones. Always thought it was called that for the ivory white colour of it.

that Merchant & Ivory were life partners as well as film making partners

that the little arrow on the fuel gauge tells you which side of the car the gas tank is on

third time that's turned up!

haha i am now dazzling all my colleagues and friends with this new knowledge

I am always excited when I rent a car and can exercise that knowledge.

not shocking as such, more interesting:

i watched The Art Of Persia ( https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000k48j ) and The Warriors, the film about the gang trying to get back to coney island, within a couple of days of each other recently and they both mentioned a guy called Cyrus. turns out it's the same guy - the film was based on a book which was inspired by Anabasis of Xenophon which is a history of the persian leader.

would try and dazzle my colleagues with this new knowledge but they are too young to know of the film, let alone anything else.

You might be surprised. The Warriors has a surprising amount of traction among the younger generation.

The General Belgrano - sunk by THATCHER - was formerly the USS Phoenix and survived Pearl Harbor unscathed.

Blimey.

that was on QI. it's also the only ship to be sunk by a nuclear submarine.

been thinking about that recently because it's been the 40th anniversary (and it's all over forces tv between episodes of Watching). it was good for thatcher, iirc, gained her another term.

Is it true there are no battleships anymore?

(xp) Wars will do that for Tories arseholes. Apart from Churchill, of course.

From Wiki: "The single version [of "Can You Feel the Love Tonight?"] contains background vocals by Robert Englund, Rick Astley, Gary Barlow and former collaborator Kiki Dee."

Probably not in the true spirit of this thread, but I was shocked (and I am old).

lol, now imagining the chorus delivered as a mocking one-liner from Freddy himself.

The source ofg base 60 in mesopotamian mathematics being a multiplication of various joints of various digits of the human hand.
Heard it on a podcast a week or so ago then heard it referred to at a talk on Gilgamesh last night.

Also the story of the ark seeming to be a repeat of a story from Gilgamesh including the sending out of the 2 birds at teh end of the story.

& George Smith the Victorian era translator apparently being so disgusted by teh idea of Enkodu the wildman in the story being tamed by a prostitute/priestess of ishtar fucking him tame.Which turned up in a talk on Harlots, Whores & Hackabouts by Kate Lister which happened to be on early yesterday afternoon. I haven't quite worked out how this works though since Smith seems to have been the one person able to translate the Cuneiform that the table he was translating was written in , So would appear he must have translated at least some of teh story in that section before his Victorian prudishness mean he felt he couldn't work on it any further. Somebody did translate it later though since teh contents are now known.

& the versions of the story keep changing over the time that its written form have been unearthed. It was continually developing apparently. I think I need to actually read it.

One fo the more interesting comments the panel doing the talking brought up yesterday was about Gilgamesh's destruction of his environment for profit . Seemed to be relishing in capitalism according to them but I think I need to see things for myself.
Like how much of a complete antihero the protagonist was and how much sensibilities have changed since it was written seem fascinating.

another notable thing related to lion king single versions

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VskdGNwi-c

That it's ophthalmology, not opthalmology.

It me.

the State of Hawaii is actually 137 islands spread out over 1,500 miles

The penny farthing bicycle (big front wheel, tiny rear wheel) was named for the English coins penny and farthing, because of the ratio of sizes between the wheels resembles the size ratio of the coins. I'm American, but still.

Well it's long defunct currency so maybe not that surprising. Decimal currency came in in 1970 and the farthing is earlier. Actually not sure it was still in use at that time.