Geordie Haka
Apologies if I am late to the party and you’ve already seen this… There are some great Geordie expressions included in it, my personal favourite being “geet fat knacka” which my brother and I used to call each other. (Who am I kidding with the “used to”?) Incidentally, for some reason this inserted video has […]
“Solve This If You Are A Genius”
Well, that was the headline on Facebook at any rate. Don’t scroll down. See how you get on. The correct answer is 79. That is, the last digit of the number before the equation becomes the first digit of the number after the equation. Add two to it for the second digit. 116 was missed out […]
The internet has eaten itself
There was a time, before internet shopping took off, before Ebay, before YouTube, before FaceBook became cool and then uncool, when the main purpose of the internet seemed to be the dissemination of intermittently amusing short films and animations. (Well, that and porn, obviously. Apparently.) I even had a job compiling hundreds of these clips into […]
Is this genius…or just plain daft?
I really can’t decide. I tried to explain what3words.com to Mrs W and my brother recently and was roundly mocked, and – seeing as there was no web-enabled device handy to show them exactly what I meant – they continued to mock until I dissolved in my own pool of shameful tears. Here’s the idea. Every […]
Impossible: where have the women disappeared to?
Impossible (Noel Coward Theatre, London) is one of those show about which you wonder, “Why has this not been seen before?” An ensemble magic show featuring multiple performers doing different kinds of tricks, from huge illusions (yes, a car vanishes, a helicopter appears) to card and coin tricks. It was packed, the audience loved it, and […]
A Sporting Occasion
I’m not terribly sporty, but I love a spot of tennis, especially Wimbledon. Who doesn’t? When I was a kid, my mum – whose interest in sport was and is practically zero – would watch Wimbledon every afternoon, and formed strong views on the players. She still dislikes Jimmy Connors, for example, because he […]
Heart-stopping TV from 50 years ago
You really HAVE to take 10 minutes out of your busy day to watch this – please! You’ll love it…unless you’re scared of heights. A few days ago, Twitter was a-tweet with the news that a man called John Noakes had gone missing – thankfully temporarily – from his home in Mallorca. Now, to anyone […]
A gloriously bonkers invention
Say sayonara to boring old weather forecasts! This latest Japanese invention recreates tomorrow’s weather in a box. In your living room! I especially like the caption at 1.37. Apparently, the manufacture of this is due to be crowd-funded some time this year. Check out the Tempescope website for more details, and hope that the final version […]
The strangest optical illusion of all
This is called – with variations – the Motion After Effect. The reason that it happens is a wonderfully complex interaction between your brain and your eyes. It was first observed by Aristotle, but was not fully described until the 19th century, and not understood until the 20th. Stare at the spinning spiral for about thirty […]
Magic or maths?
This is an old puzzle re-done by a clever magician called Greg Rostami. I have watched it three times now and I have NO IDEA how it works. It’s not a trick (I don’t think) – that is, there’s nothing “secret” going on. But it’s got me completely baffled. (Best watched on full-screen).
