Factrs to Impress your mum with

    But this ramble does have a point! To save you the uncomfortable silence you will undoubtedly experience when your mother asks you what you did over semester break, I have compiled some facts. Facts so astonishing you can bombard her with these instead of telling her the sordid truth, and she will just stare back at you with a look of amazement.

London Fog is a delightfully refreshing hot beverage containing Earl Grey, steamed milk and vanilla syrup. Interestingly, and purely to get brownie points from Ryan Boyd, Star Trek’s Captain Jean-Luc Picard (played by the very foxy and bald Patrick Stewart) favours straight Earl Grey tea over all other tea varieties. So does Frasier Crane.
Fellow foxy man Russell Brand has been arrested 11 times, probably for being too cool for school. He also practices yoga, just like Sarah Jessica Parker. His cat is named Morrissey, and he credits the Hare Krishnas with helping him overcome his heroin addiction. So thank them for his life next time they stop you as you stroll down Queen Street.
The collective noun for kangaroo is a mob, troop, or court. Females can be called jills. Males can be called boomers or jacks. Get it? A male and female kangaroo pairing are called Jack and Jill. There used to be a television show called Jack and Jill, except not many people watched it. Amanda Peet played Jack and Ivan Sergei played Jill. Gosh, it sure was subversive.
The words spatula and spade are both derived from the Latin word spatha, or broad sword. In ye olde Constantinople, a soldier’s status was signified by the length of his sword. They did, however, balance practicality with hubris and one’s sword was never longer than one metre. The word scoopula has far less noble origins, and is just the combination of scoop and spatula.
Christmas Day is not just Christmas Day. It is host to a myriad of exciting events - in 1926, Emperor Taisho of Japan died of a heart attack. It was also the date of the first successful run of an early internet model in 1990. And it’s Dido’s birthday. Questlove, the drummer from The Roots, is working on Dido’s forthcoming album. I am trying not to make a disparaging comment about this. It is not easy considering Patrick Stump featured on The Roots’ latest album Rising Down. Interestingly, Stump’s track was removed from The Roots’ CD in America because it didn’t mesh with the other tracks (read: it was lame).
River Cuomo, the super adorable lead man now solo artiste of Weezer, was named so ridiculously because he was born between the East and Hudson rivers in Manhattan. By this same theory, anyone born in a hospital would be called Wall or Bed. River Phoenix was named after the River of Life in Hermann Hesse’s novel Siddhartha. Coincidentally, this book is about one man’s spiritual journey during the time of Buddha; and Rivers Cuomo practices Vipassana meditation. Oh, how deep the River flows.

Ultimately, mummy’s only have your best interests at heart though. So before you do anything this semester break, ask yourself this - would my mum have done this back in her heyday? And the answer will probably be yes, because I’ve seen Almost Famous and I know what the kids were doing back in the seventies. BAD THINGS!