Wednesday Trivia

1. It's not a good idea to get baking powder in a cut. I found this out the hard way..

2. On this day in 1935, Allen Lane started British publishing house Penguin Books, "starting the paperback revolution" according to our newspaper.

He wanted to provide quality writing as cheaply as a packet of cigarettes. (Can anyone tell me what cigarettes cost these days? I have no idea.) He also wanted paperbacks to be sold not only in bookshops, but in railway stations, general stores and corner shops. Well, that has certainly happened. But I'm not sure what he'd think of the quality of books sold in those places, or in most bookshops for that matter.

In the big chains here, cookbooks and sports biographies seem to feature most prominently. And the paperbacks tend to be of the cheap thriller sort. Thank goodness for the few quality independent stores that still survive.

3. Also according to our local paper - someone has come up with the idea to put a basketball hoop on a rubbish skip. This is to be placed in an area with several fast food chains, frequented at night by youth, mostly inebriated. The idea is that they can "slam dunk their rubbish" - and that it will be attractive to pick up rubbish off the ground, if they can compete to get it through the hoop. Brilliant!

4. One of our major milk brands is running a contest in which the prize is a year's supply of low fat, high calcium milk. At least, it claims the prize is a year's supply. Then I read the fine print - "limited to 104 2 litre bottles".
In our household, we get through at least three times that much a week. When the children were younger, we got through twice as much as we do now. I'm afraid their prize (which works out at about a pint a day, a healthy amount for one person) isn't going to do much to help any household struggling with the sky rocketing prices of basic foods.