Today I learned...

in 1931, New Zealand suffered an epidemic of exploding trousers

Wikipedia has a non-paywall link but the New Scientist one has more amusing detail.

I didn't learn this today, but recently dsiscovered the portuguese man o war is NOT a jellyfish, it's a siphonophore, a bloody colonial organism made up of various zooids. And I've been thinking it's a jellyfish all these years.

From watching Octonauts, I hope?

No, I was just down a bit of a wikippedia rabbit hole.

Probably common knowledge and not something I learned today but talking of wikipedia, if you click the first hyperlink on any article and keep clicking the first link on each result page, you pretty much always end up on Philosophy

I think it has to be the first hyperlink that isn't in brackets or the phonetic pronunciation otherwise you end up in a circle about Latin, Greek and Language I think, which in itself is quite interesting.

Apparently the slow death and then resurgence of brewing in North London had a significant impact on the stability of Northern Line tunnels.

Andre Agassi was wearing a wig through the 90s.

A few years ago, some paleontologists decided to make a study of how non-avian therepods (a class of dinosaur) walked. Since they're all long dead, they had to be inventive. So...

The title of this thread has been niggling me for a while and I like that this is quite meta.

https://www.ecenglish.com/en/social/blog/ec-central/2016/10/10/learnt-or-learned

Kenny Loggins was in The Electric Prunes

Did not know this, wow... And his first band, The Second Helping, appeared on a Pebbles LP...

I DJ'd for the Electric Prunes when they played the Camden Underworld sometime in the mid noughties, Kenny was not in the band on that tour...

error-strewn 55-year-old foggy brain melting here: “holy fuck, KENNY LOGGINS was in The Electric Prunes?!?” so I just Googled for a Kenny Loggins/Gavin Bryars combo and of course that’s idiotic because I am thinking of Virgin Prunes and Gavin Friday and bye you will find me under the duvet > heat death of universsssse.

(don’t get old folks)

The Prunes! Can't say I was a huge fan but I did see them support the Birthday Party at the a Brixton Ace in 82/83... We're of a similar vintage... 👴

That Police Squad wasn't just a spoof of an older cop show but a scene-by-scene reshoot with added jokes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvotUunsEjQ

Wasn’t airplane a remake of an old movie too?

Aye. Zero Hour

That this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1May2M8wCw

is a cover of this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMrNDnU6PPk

I've listened to both of them many, many times without twigging until it was mentioned on the radio this morning.

The original is superb. Perfect pop record.

Also best "Top of the Pops appearance that totally bemused the viewers' parents about what was happening"

That The Specials Too Much Too Young was heavily influenced by this 70’s Trojan track. Best part of 40 years and I had no idea.

https://youtu.be/0YW4XJqOcuo

Sames probably true of a lot of Specials tracks!

There should probably be a thread dedicated to surprising covers/originals/heavy influences

@EB Trinity 'three piece suit' on the same rhythm is excellent.