Showing posts with label J.K. Rowling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label J.K. Rowling. Show all posts

May 25, 2015

Names and Initials

You may have wondered about some famous person's initials.

  • E. E. Cummings - The famous poet's initials stood for Edward Estlin Cummings
  • E.B. White - Writer and author of English Language Sytle Guide, Elwyn Brooks White
  • H.P. Lovecraft - Horror author, Howard Phillips Lovecraft
  • H.G. Wells - "war of the worlds", "time machine", etc., Herbert George Wells
  • J.K. Rowling - The "K" in J.K. Rowling is not her name. Joanne Rowling does not have a middle name, but her publishers wanted to add another initial to her name for her book. She settled on Kathleen, the name of her favorite grandmother.
  • J.R.R. Tolkien - "Hobbit", lord of rings series, etc., John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

Nov 23, 2013

Seventeen Beer Facts

Much beer is guzzled during the holidays so here are a few beer facts that can be used  to impress the relatives.

After he won the Nobel Prize, Niels Bohr was given a perpetual supply of beer piped into his house. (He lived next to a brewery).

The Code of Hammurabi decreed that bartenders who watered down beer would be executed.

At the Annual Wife Carrying World Championships (in Finland), the first prize is the wife's weight in beer.

The builders of the Great Pyramid of Giza were paid with a daily ration of beer.

The top five states for beer consumption per capita: 1. North Dakota, 2. New Hampshire, 3. Montana, 4. South Dakota, 5. Wisconsin.

Germany is home to a beer pipeline. Taps in Veltsin-Arena are connected by a 5km (3 mile) tube of beer.

Thomas Jefferson wrote parts of the Declaration of Independence in a Philadelphia tavern.

George Washington insisted his continental army be permitted a quart of beer as part of their daily rations.

At spas in Europe, you can literally bathe in beer as a physical and mental therapeutic treatment.

In the 1990s, the Beer Lovers Party ran candidates in Belarus and Russia.

J.K. Rowling, of Harry Potter fame invented Quidditch in a pub.

Beer helped Joseph Priestly discover oxygen. He noticed gases rising from the big vats of beer at a brewery and asked to do some experiments.

A Buddhist temple in the Thai countryside was built with over a million recycled beer bottles.

The moon has a crater named Beer.

Beer soup was a common breakfast in medieval Europe.

At the start of Bavarian Beer Week in Germany, an open-air beer fountain dispenses free beer to the public.

In the 1980s, a beer-drinking goat was elected mayor of Lajitas, TX.