Roll Call

In November 2006, 23-year-old David Fearn of Staffordshire changed his name to James Dr. No From Russia With Love Goldfinger Thunderball You Only Live Twice On Her Majesty’s Secret Service Diamonds Are Forever Live and Let Die The Man With the Golden Gun The Spy Who Loved Me Moonraker For Your Eyes Only Octopussy A View to a Kill The Living Daylights Licence to Kill GoldenEye Tomorrow Never Dies The World Is Not Enough Die Another Day Casino Royale Bond.

It’s the longest name in deed poll history.

Root Cause

Memorize these facts:

cubes

With them you can find any two-digit cube root. For example, what’s the cube root of 12,167?

1. Express the number in six digits (012167). Take the first three digits (012) and compare them to the blue cubes above. Find the largest cube that’s less than your three-digit string, and write down its root. Here, 012 is between 8 and 27, so we write down 2.

2. Match the last digit of the number (7) to the last digit of a blue cube above (here, 27). Write down the root of that number (3).

That’s it. Put the two digits together (23) and that’s your root: 233 = 12,167.

This works for any perfect cube between 1,000 and 1 million.

“Curious Account of a Tame Seal”

In January 1819, in the neighbourhood of Burntisland, a gentleman completely succeeded in taming a Seal; its singularities attracted the curiosity of strangers daily. It appeared to possess all the sagacity of the dog, and lived in its master’s house, and eat from his hand. In his fishing excursions, this gentleman generally took with him, upon which occasions it afforded no small entertainment. When thrown into the water, it would follow for miles the track of the boat, and although thrust back by the oars, it never relinquished its purpose. Indeed it struggled so hard to regain its seat, that one would imagine its fondness for its master had entirely overcome the natural predilection for its native element.

— Pierce Egan, Sporting Anecdotes, Original and Selected, 1822

Innovation Punished

Pliny, Petronius, and Dion Cassius all tell of a flexible glass invented in the first century A.D. Dion says a man displayed a glass cup to Tiberius and dashed it to the ground. The vessel bent rather than breaking, and the inventor hammered it back into its original form.

Was it aluminum? We’ll never know — the emperor had the man killed lest the new metal devalue his gold.

“My Poker Girl”

Her eyes are velvet, soft and fine,
That none can antedate;
Her hair’s fine strands seem all divine,
Her form is, oh! so

http://books.google.com/books?id=07A-AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA41&dq=%22and+when+she+wills+to+blush%22&as_brr=1&ei=6lgrSar4H4XCywSqkvnBBQ

Her teeth, like driven snow, are white;
And when she wills to blush
There is no tint can equal quite
Her rounded cheek’s fine

http://books.google.com/books?id=07A-AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA41&dq=%22and+when+she+wills+to+blush%22&as_brr=1&ei=6lgrSar4H4XCywSqkvnBBQ

Could I but hold a hand like that
Just once, I would not care
If afterwards I stood quite pat
Forever, on a

http://books.google.com/books?id=07A-AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA41&dq=%22and+when+she+wills+to+blush%22&as_brr=1&ei=6lgrSar4H4XCywSqkvnBBQ

— Thomas Lansing Masson

The Body Politic

In January 1950, senator Victor Biaka-Boda of French West Africa was touring his homeland when his car broke down in a region with a history of cannibalism.

His charred bones were found in November. Apparently he had been eaten by his constituents.

The Trilithon

http://books.google.com/books?id=pYJGAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA107&dq=trilithon+baalbek&as_brr=1&ei=8R80SZGAHI74MMTQoPsB&rview=1

In a quarry at Baalbek, in modern Lebanon, lies “the stone of the south” — a single hewn stone weighing 1500 tons. It’s not surprising that the ancients abandoned it; if they’d got it out of the quarry it would have been the largest stone ever moved.

But a retaining wall nearby contains a row of three stones weighing 750 tons apiece. Somehow they were raised 22 feet into position. No one knows how.

Penny Wise

A currency curiosity discovered by Lewis Carroll:

Write down any number of pounds not more than 12, any number of shillings under 20, and any number of pence under 12. Under the pounds figure write the number of pence, under the shillings the number of shillings, and under the pence the number of pounds, thus reversing the line.

Subtract. [If you need to make exchanges, 1 pound = 20 shillings = 240 pence.]

Reverse the line again.

Add.

“Answer, 12 pounds 18 shillings 11 pence, whatever numbers may have been selected.”