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Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Reasons I love research

During the Victorian era, Rowland's Macassar Oil was popular for men's hair styles. So popular, in fact, that the antimacassar was created (and named) for the purpose of keeping it off furniture.



I associate mangoes with the Caribbean, and I'm sure I'm not alone in that. But they originated in South Asia. They took so well to the climate of the Caribbean, and in fact the rest of the tropics, so long ago that they may as well be indigenous to the region (but they're not).

I am the only person on earth who doesn't like mangoes. But now my narrator doesn't either.



A two-foot-tall cat sculpture named Kaspar has been a regular dinner guest at London's Savoy Hotel since 1926, for parties that do not wish to have thirteen persons seated at their table.



James Hook has yellow blood, according to J. M. Barrie in his "Hook at Eton" speech, but he's not alone. Sea cucumbers have yellow blood too. This is due to a high concentration of a pigment called vanubin, which serves an uncertain purpose for the sea cucumber. For James too, I suppose.





2 comments:

  1. I as always thought antimacassar was a very strange name for a chair doily. I still think it is a bit strange but at least now I know the origin. Thanks.

    Also I did not know mangos are not indigenous to South America.

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  2. Heh--after I posted that, I suddenly pictured the world saying, "I knew where mangoes came from. Why didn't she?" I feel better now.

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