pigeonbeaks.com

From today’s Time’s online, the advent calendar that features a serial killer, clutching a meat cleaver, ready to chop up kids skating on the frozen river. The man isn’t just any old serial killer, he’s identified as Fritz Haarmann (name spelled incorrectly by the Times) who killed 24 people in Hanover after the First World War.

I can’t decide whether or not I agree that it should be pulled from shops. Historically accurate - yes. Tasteful? Er….

Either way, it makes a great image-based question for a pub quiz.

A very interesting list at Jottings.com that presents several questions. Who was it that actually registered these domains back then (especially the first ever one) and what exactly did they plan to do with them? On several occasions entire batches of domains were registered on the same day - by the same person/organisation?

Good pub quiz question - what was the first ever registered dot com name?

I only just learnt that there is a word which describes the mis-hearing of a phrase, in such a way that it acquires a new meaning. The word is “mondegreen” and it is itself a mondegreen. The American writer Sylvia Wright coined it in an essay “The Death of Lady Mondegreen”, which was published in Harper’s Magazine in November 1954.

Click here for the wikipedia article.

And be sure to check out The Archive of Misheard Lyrics whose url comes directly from one of the most famous mondegreens of all time…

Recently seen on the blackboard of an olde English pub, the following riddle:

If I am holding a bee in my hand, what do I have in my eye?

Answer in the comments…