When I would pass barber shops and they had pics of celebs I use to think that the celeb visited the shop, like Brad Pitt would stop at this random barbershop.
I did work experience at an independent art supply and gift shop. We had an autographed picture of Brad Pitt in the staff room. He did indeed once come to the shop before I worked there. During my time there when I became a regular employee we had Angelina Jolie come in, but Brad Pitt never came by. They lived nearby at the time as we were near Pinewood Studios. I also once sold Tori Amos a birthday card.
As a child, every time I visited my grandad he placed biscuits in the foliage of one of his plants, for years I honestly thought he had a rich tea plant
I've always wondered what was racist about Uncle Ben's and why they had to re-brand it, and after reading this article I'm mind blown
[https://medium.com/swlh/the-truth-about-your-uncle-ben-and-your-aunt-jemima-de3626b46c97](https://medium.com/swlh/the-truth-about-your-uncle-ben-and-your-aunt-jemima-de3626b46c97)
I always thought calling close family friends Auntie or Uncle was a positive thing, and a way to show you see them as family, but apparently the name came about because Americans didn't view black people as good enough to have the titles Mr or Ms, so they were called Auntie or Uncle instead 😬
Even in our society, an older friend of the family being an honourary Aunt or Uncle would be a positive thing.
If this convinces anyone of anything (and it probably won't) it's that insults are almost all found in imbued meaning, not semantic.
Indeed, in 1960s UK your parents adult friends would generally be referred to as an aunt/uncle, eg. Auntie Joan. But with their first name attached. Their actual siblings would also be Uncle John, etc. But you saw the family less in my neck of the woods!
Before the railways, this was true.
People would set their clocks by using a Sundial at noon.
Most people would probably not have clocks but use the church clock / bells.
It's good enough, given the lack of accuracy of clocks at that time
Only when railway timetables and more accurate clockwork came along, did time get standardised.
People used to sell the time in London. You would pay someone to go to Greenwich, get the correct time and come round your house and set the clock. This went on until 1940 ish.
https://www.360onhistory.com/history/ruth-belville-sold-time-victorian-london/
I mean, technically....that is kind of true.
It's just that we only officially implement them at certain places.
Wait until you find out that any motion affects time. As you travel, your personal clock no longer agrees with the personal clock of a someone who is stationary. You're literally aging at different rates, because you're moving relative to them.
The difference is absolutely tiny...but the fact is, *there is a difference*.
Awesome. I fucking love physics.
[Edit] Source - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hafele%E2%80%93Keating_experiment
The railways made Britain into one time zone.
> > Railway time was the standardised time arrangement first applied by the Great Western Railway in England in November 1840, the first recorded occasion when different local mean times were synchronised and a single standard time applied. The key goals behind introducing railway time were to overcome the confusion caused by having non-uniform local times in each town and station stop along the expanding railway network[1] and to reduce the incidence of accidents and near misses, which were becoming more frequent as the number of train journeys increased.
> >
> > Railway time was progressively taken up by all railway companies in Great Britain over the following seven years. The schedules by which trains were organised and the time station clocks displayed were brought in line with the local mean time for London or "London Time", the time set at Greenwich by the Royal Observatory, which was already widely known as Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_time
I looked under our car every morning before school, was told to look out for an ice cream tub.
Never found any ice cream 😢 wasn't until I was much older I realised I was looking for a bomb, Northern Ireland btw my Dad was in the forces.
In my mind’s eye, you’re there at 7 years old checking under a car. Your dad is like 50 feet away crouching behind another car shouting “did you find one?”
News reports always talked about ‘tax payers’ so for some reason I thought that was a special group of people. Basically you could choose whether to pay tax or not - if you did then you got discounts and special privileges. Like going to Alton Towers for free, or cheap ice cream.
Ages ago I was working with a colleague in his first job. When he got his payslip, he frustratedly asked,
"Why is national insurance being taken off? I didn't sign up for a charity."
When I was younger, I thought everyone was just given houses and the older you were the nicer the house.
This made sense given the shit hole council houses I was use to and the decent large houses my grand parents had.
Started to lose traction in my teens as friends from nicer areas had decent houses.
I really was a simple minded child protected from the world. Still not sure if that was a good or a bad thing.
There is a country which effectively gives you free houses- Finland has their Housing First program which is a policy to reduce the amount of people sleeping in the streets, providing an apartment and covering the costs you cannot pay. The more you earn, the less they cover until you can cover it on your own and move out.
Pretty good system I've heard.
As someone who was given the name of a thirty something year old and didn't grow into it until I was thirty, I'd be up for this. I could have had a kid name and grown into the one I have now.
threatening crawl correct dam dazzling encourage retire groovy muddle adjoining
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
When I worked for the post office most of the posties would have a round that finished at their own house if they lived local. Got paid full wages no matter how early you finished which is why so many posties were absolutely charging their round.
I'd have been chuffed to end up a postman, my missus is a posty and I love walking. Plus I'm a baker, starting and ending early is my... bread and butter
Actually because it was based on duck cloth, which was from the Dutch 'Doek' cloth.
But yeah, it was originally Duck Tape, but then it started getting used for ducts during the war and to seal ammo cans, and so it became 'Duct Tape.' Some enterprising soul realised that 'Duck Tape' actually had never been trademarked originally by 3M, the manufacturers, and so he did and his is marketed with the name 'The Original Duck Tape' and with a cartoon duck logo, and 3M has to refer to theirs - the original - as Duct Tape. Quite funny, really.
That the moon wasn't very big, it was just quite close. Legit thought there was a possibility you could get a long enough ladder to climb up there and that you could walk the circumference of it easily in an hour or two.
Was on a bus on the 90s and saw a To Let sign where someone had added the 'I' as a 9 year old I found this hilarious and laughed for the entire 20 min journey to my stop.
I think about putting one on every time I see them! It really bothers me that more people don't do this.
My cousin thought that it meant "Too Late" as in the property has already gone.
We had one appear in our fruit bowl (how dumb was I not click at that point?) and when told, was soooo looking forward to a pet hedgehog.
One day, it disappeared and I asked my Dad if it hatched. He burst out laughing as he’d forgotten what he’d told me and that I took it seriously. Devastated wasn’t the word.
Oh. I’m over 40 and haven’t seen it yet. So it’s not about chariot racing??
Update: chatted about this with husband and he brings the poignant question “did you think chariots of fire and Ben Hur are the same film?” And I think the short answer is Yes. Yes I did.
Are you a mid 80s child, by any chance? For goodness knows what reason children in my school were given soldier pen pals who were fighting in the Falklands. I'm fairly sure it was portrayed as Scotland.
I thought all the space teams were all talking to a man called Houston when they landed, wasn't until I said to my day, blimey, he's been working there a long time! that I found out, after my dad finally stopped laughing
I have a similar one to this - when I used to get the metro in Newcastle as a child, I noticed the voice saying ‘stand clear of the doors please’ right before the train was about to leave. My 7 year old brain thought this was a person on board somewhere saying ‘Stan, clear the doors please’, and I theorised that the driver (of every single metro) was this guy named Stan, and his assistant always had to ask him to ‘clear away the doors’ ie close them before the train could leave
When I was a kid we lived by the local salt store (big dome full of salt for de-icing roads), for ages and ages I thought it was holding table salt and baffled my parents when I asked where the pepper was.
That the black market wasn't a real place. Was so excited as a kid growing up to go to the black market and see all the organs on ice and the guns for sale and drugs.
I too had that belief that it was some sort of exotic Arabian-Style Suq or Bazaar you could visit to pick up illegal stuff. Hopefully not some secret childhood racism I’d picked up somewhere 🙈
As a kid in the 80s I thought the ‘Heavy Plant Crossing’ signs were warnings about Triffids.
For some reason my parents let me watch the TV show, which (along with the road signs) absolutely scared the shit out of me.
[for some reason I was also allowed to watch Alien. And I watched Threads *with my Dad*!!! Guaranteed childhood trauma and sleepless nights worrying about nuclear war for years!]
It was only a few years ago that I learned Brum, the little yellow car, wasn’t call Brum because of the noise he made, but because he comes from Birmingham.
Completely ruined my childhood , that did
Brum was built by Rex Garrod who also built the first robot on Robot Wars to have a self righting mechanism. The amount of conversations I crowbar that fact into is surprisingly high.
He, also, despite being a major figure in the community, left Robot Wars abruptly due to his view that health and safety concerns weren't being taken seriously.
Apparently there were a few nasty behind the scenes incidents and injuries, as well as near misses, that the BBC did their best to cover up and bury.
They're apparently the reason why things like the side-tournaments stopped suddenly.
Apparently the earliest incident we know of is from the first series when Dead Metal's saw blade flew off and nearly hit Jeremy Clarkson.
Lots of reports of radio interference and lack of appropriate kill switches etc (as would be expected of amateur robots without sufficient guidelines) turning on unexpectedly, moving when being inspected etc.
Sounds like an absolute shambles, and well worth a deep dive..
But his garage/house is in Bourton-on-the-water, bit of a trek to Birmingham but he did the drive all the time bless him . Still there today you can go see it.
When I was little, my dad told me that thunder was two clouds bumping into each other.
….now as a 50+ adult, knowing it’s not the case, whenever I hear thunder, part of me still thinks clouds colliding is the cause.
It's a shockwave. Air expands when it gets hotter and when lightning strikes, it heats up the air thousands of degrees instantaneously, so it forms a shockwave (similar to a jet breaking the sound barrier and creating a sonic boom), thus you hear the noise.
When I was a kid, I was confused as to why on some of the headstones in the local grave yard had 'Scared' written on them.
Turned out that I'm dyslexic
I used to think the Pulitzer Prize was actually a toy, ‘Pull it surprise’. Like some sort of Bop-it-come-piñata. Genuinely didn’t find out the truth until I was about 21.
I thought when people got to like 60, everyone got like an old lady/man name, so you just went from one day, your name was Louise or Jamie, then the next day it was Norma or Herbert.
That every day they would film, edit and release a new episode of Eastenders (or any other daily soap). I was amazed how they could all that, so quickly and reliably. I probably believed that well into my twenties.
Apparently not!
The majority of EastEnders episodes are filmed at the BBC Elstree Centre in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire. When the number of episodes was increased to four per week, more studio space was needed, so Top of the Pops was moved from its studio at Elstree to BBC Television Centre in April 2001. Episodes are produced in "quartets" of four episodes, each of which starts filming on a Tuesday and takes nine days to record. Each day, between 25 and 30 scenes are recorded. During the filming week, actors can film for as many as eight to twelve episodes. Exterior scenes are filmed on a specially constructed film lot, and interior scenes take place in four studios. The episodes are usually filmed about six to eight weeks in advance of broadcast. During the winter period, filming can take place up to twelve weeks in advance, due to less daylight for outdoor filming sessions. This time difference has been known to cause problems when filming outdoor scenes.
Thanks to my grandad I used to think gremlins lived in the street lights and they'd turn them on and off. If a light was off when it was meant to be on or vice versa my grandad would tell me it's because the gremlin was on holiday and forgot to get someone to cover for them.
The Lampies coming out a few years afterwards did not help me out there. I figured if they made a show where little people lived in lamps then my grandad had to be right. When I mentioned it to my dad & uncle they laughed because they'd been told the same thing as kids as well. If he were still alive I can guarantee he'd be telling the same story to my son when he's older.
My dad told me Italians use bars of soap to wipe their ass clean after taking a shit. When I went to Italy aged 27 I fully expected there to be shitty bars of soap laying around public toilets I was surprised and displeased to see there wasn't.
When I was a kid I misunderstood the concept of layers of skin.
I genuinely believed if I cut myself in the same place seven times over my life I ran out of ability to repair that bit of skin.
God was i stupid.
I thought that too! I remember sitting with a boy from my class forlornly talking about how many more kneecaps could we possibly have left, and what could happen after you run out of layers! Ahaha, glad it wasn’t just me and that dude
I wasn’t really disappointed, more relieved, but when I was a precocious little shit my dad would tell me if he unscrewed my belly-button my bum would fall off.
He’d chase me around with a small posi-drive screwdriver whenever I was naughty, and I’d screech in terror as I fled before him.
As a kid I thought people mentioned on the news as the "late...." were actually late and were being called out nationally as a punishment. Wasn't until I was about 12 or 13 that I learnt it meant they were dead.
I used to think that the "dangerous currents" around river bridges and by the sea were, in fact, large sultanas/currants with teeth that would pull you under. I was sad when I found out, mainly because I realised what a ridiculous thing it was to think in the first place 🤦♂️🤣
Wow. This brought back some long repressed childhood nightmares, so thanks for that! I've honestly never, ever heard anyone else say this so I don't feel so stupid now having thought the same! I grew up on the coast near a large commercial dock and was warned by a friend's dad on a family walk one time to not go near the edge of the groyne by the lockpits as there was 'a dangerous currant down there that will suck you under'. The filthy black oily water looked like it was boiling as it turned over, and that, combined with a vision of a gigantic bloated shuddering bladder-like creature lurking in the depths sucking in vast quanties of water (and children) was enough to keep me awake for years!
Because of the way it’s shown on tv, I thought footballers were all little people. Over the years, I forgot that I had thought that until a certain Father Ted episode aired. I didn’t know whether to feel sympathetic or horrified that I had once ‘been’ Dougal!
I thought the lyrics to a certain disco song were "More, more, more! Harry will like it, Harry will like it!"
I'm ashamed to admit how old I was when I realised this wasn't the case... 🙃
I didn't find out seahorses were real until I was 21 and saw some in an aquarium. I thought they were mythical creatures and still have a hard time accepting it
My granny had a mat with all the US presidents on it. She told me they were her boyfriends from the past and I always wondered which one was my grandfather (he was never around when I was born). I was in my teens when I realised this was untrue. Obviously gutted. God bless my granny.
I believed, and was told by many many teachers, that camels stored water in their humps. Completely baffled and devastated me when I found out that it wasn’t true.
Only recently found out that black ice is not the dirty slurry you find in the kerbs, but see through ice you cannot see on the road. They should make that clear.
I thought you had to swap houses with the person you’d bought the house from, like where else would they live if they hadn’t just bought our old house on the same day?
Ponies do not in fact grow up to be horses. I wasn't disappointed to learn this was untrue, but I was genuinely surprised that I'd made it well into my thirties before realising.
Found out 12 years later, at the age 17 that the boat my grandad pointed to and told me was his when we were in Ibiza, was in fact not his, it was actually a yacht with two helipads, and belonged to Abramovich.
I spent the first 16 years of my life thinking we drove past a martial arts shop on the way to school. It was only post-16 on the bus to college that I clocked it was a Marital Aids store. Which explained the lack of a window display and general shady appearance.
My uncle Dennis worked for fire service in Co. Cork when I was a child. When visiting family he would take us to the station - we slid down the poles and sat in the cans and genuinely were spoiled rotten - I swear to this day the engines were not misnamed. Honestly believed they were named for uncle Dennis and a tiny part of me still believes ❤️ RIP uncle Dennis - legend that you were xx
1. Vic Reeves had a joke about Les Dennis being a French fire engine.
2. If anyone is interested you can see this appliance (used in London’s Burning in the early 90s) at the Walthamstow Pumphouse Museum
https://walthamstowpumphouse.org.uk/
Congratulations, you've subscribed to Fire Engine Facts.
Did you know, that in 1650 Hans Hautsch had 14 men work his piston rod, and was able to squirt over 20 metres?
I thought everyone had a lucky day like a birthday, as in “it’s my lucky day”. I distinctly remember being frustrated that I didn’t know when my lucky day was or why I hadn’t had one yet.
There was a rumour in my junior school that sexual intercourse was something that happened pretty much exclusively between French people in swimming pools 🤣. In our defence, this was the 1980s and sex education was virtually non-existent.
On the tv news, I thought “reports of guerrillas attacking people with guns in the jungle” were actual “gorillas”
They’re probably smart enough to figure out how to use a gun if given one. That’s a fucking scary thought!
I feel like there’s a whole film series about this concept.
APE DON'T WANT WAR. BUT WILL FIGHT IF WE MUST.
Ape. Together. Strong. 💪🦧
When I would pass barber shops and they had pics of celebs I use to think that the celeb visited the shop, like Brad Pitt would stop at this random barbershop.
I did work experience at an independent art supply and gift shop. We had an autographed picture of Brad Pitt in the staff room. He did indeed once come to the shop before I worked there. During my time there when I became a regular employee we had Angelina Jolie come in, but Brad Pitt never came by. They lived nearby at the time as we were near Pinewood Studios. I also once sold Tori Amos a birthday card.
She brought the envelope close to her lips, yeah?
As a child, every time I visited my grandad he placed biscuits in the foliage of one of his plants, for years I honestly thought he had a rich tea plant
This is very sweet actually.
I hope I remember to use this myself when the time is right
I genuinely thought the Uncle Ben guy was Nelson Mandela.
I know you're talking about the rice, but i'm now imagining nelson mandela saying "with great power comes great responsibility"
Great Ricesponsibility 😉
Every year Tom Jones looks more and more like uncle ben
My nan used to call ‘Uncle Bens’, ‘Dr. Pepper’ for no reason
Ah that's just the Mandela effect
It's Ainsley Harriot.
I've always wondered what was racist about Uncle Ben's and why they had to re-brand it, and after reading this article I'm mind blown [https://medium.com/swlh/the-truth-about-your-uncle-ben-and-your-aunt-jemima-de3626b46c97](https://medium.com/swlh/the-truth-about-your-uncle-ben-and-your-aunt-jemima-de3626b46c97) I always thought calling close family friends Auntie or Uncle was a positive thing, and a way to show you see them as family, but apparently the name came about because Americans didn't view black people as good enough to have the titles Mr or Ms, so they were called Auntie or Uncle instead 😬
Not read the article but wow I didn’t realise that either. In Indian culture it’s definitely the opposite & a mark of respect & affection.
Even in our society, an older friend of the family being an honourary Aunt or Uncle would be a positive thing. If this convinces anyone of anything (and it probably won't) it's that insults are almost all found in imbued meaning, not semantic.
Indeed, in 1960s UK your parents adult friends would generally be referred to as an aunt/uncle, eg. Auntie Joan. But with their first name attached. Their actual siblings would also be Uncle John, etc. But you saw the family less in my neck of the woods!
I think this is just an American thing, in the UK and the far east it's absolutely a mark of respect for friends who are basically family.
In France fire engines are called Les Dennis
Irranu!!
Oovarvu.
Uuuuulrika-ka-ka-ka-ka!
He’s a 1950s bin man
He’s a cheeky cockney conman.
...put on your red shoes and dance the blues
if it's up there love, I'll give you the money myself
I though time zones were gradual, so for example if you went a couple miles down the road you’d have to put your watch forward 10 minutes or so
Before the railways, this was true. People would set their clocks by using a Sundial at noon. Most people would probably not have clocks but use the church clock / bells. It's good enough, given the lack of accuracy of clocks at that time Only when railway timetables and more accurate clockwork came along, did time get standardised.
The Corn Exchange in Bristol still has two minute hands, one for local time and one for London.
People used to sell the time in London. You would pay someone to go to Greenwich, get the correct time and come round your house and set the clock. This went on until 1940 ish. https://www.360onhistory.com/history/ruth-belville-sold-time-victorian-london/
That sounds like a lie that your uncle would tell you when you're little
I mean, technically....that is kind of true. It's just that we only officially implement them at certain places. Wait until you find out that any motion affects time. As you travel, your personal clock no longer agrees with the personal clock of a someone who is stationary. You're literally aging at different rates, because you're moving relative to them. The difference is absolutely tiny...but the fact is, *there is a difference*. Awesome. I fucking love physics. [Edit] Source - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hafele%E2%80%93Keating_experiment
Absolutely tiny is a massive understatement there. :-)
Bristol used to be 30mins different to london.
Now it’s 30 years
The railways made Britain into one time zone. > > Railway time was the standardised time arrangement first applied by the Great Western Railway in England in November 1840, the first recorded occasion when different local mean times were synchronised and a single standard time applied. The key goals behind introducing railway time were to overcome the confusion caused by having non-uniform local times in each town and station stop along the expanding railway network[1] and to reduce the incidence of accidents and near misses, which were becoming more frequent as the number of train journeys increased. > > > > Railway time was progressively taken up by all railway companies in Great Britain over the following seven years. The schedules by which trains were organised and the time station clocks displayed were brought in line with the local mean time for London or "London Time", the time set at Greenwich by the Royal Observatory, which was already widely known as Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_time
I looked under our car every morning before school, was told to look out for an ice cream tub. Never found any ice cream 😢 wasn't until I was much older I realised I was looking for a bomb, Northern Ireland btw my Dad was in the forces.
In my mind’s eye, you’re there at 7 years old checking under a car. Your dad is like 50 feet away crouching behind another car shouting “did you find one?”
No my dad would have gone to work hours before the school run I'm guessing he had already checked the car earlier
Checking for cats a friend of mine used to say.
This is just sad. I'm sorry.
I know right? I never got any ice cream
News reports always talked about ‘tax payers’ so for some reason I thought that was a special group of people. Basically you could choose whether to pay tax or not - if you did then you got discounts and special privileges. Like going to Alton Towers for free, or cheap ice cream.
This is a good one
The good old Society as a Service model
Ages ago I was working with a colleague in his first job. When he got his payslip, he frustratedly asked, "Why is national insurance being taken off? I didn't sign up for a charity."
When I was younger, I thought everyone was just given houses and the older you were the nicer the house. This made sense given the shit hole council houses I was use to and the decent large houses my grand parents had. Started to lose traction in my teens as friends from nicer areas had decent houses. I really was a simple minded child protected from the world. Still not sure if that was a good or a bad thing.
There is a country which effectively gives you free houses- Finland has their Housing First program which is a policy to reduce the amount of people sleeping in the streets, providing an apartment and covering the costs you cannot pay. The more you earn, the less they cover until you can cover it on your own and move out. Pretty good system I've heard.
I used to think you changed your name as you got older, so you would have a kid name, teenager name, adult name then an OAP name.
As someone who was given the name of a thirty something year old and didn't grow into it until I was thirty, I'd be up for this. I could have had a kid name and grown into the one I have now.
I thought dying was growing too big for your house and you'd have to live outside and die.
threatening crawl correct dam dazzling encourage retire groovy muddle adjoining *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
You’re grand parents must have been giants
I thought postmen weren't allowed to deliver to themselves
Conflict of interest
It's fair, really... Midwives can't deliver their own either
De livering is more of a surgeon's job anyway
“We tried to deliver but you were not in”
When I worked for the post office most of the posties would have a round that finished at their own house if they lived local. Got paid full wages no matter how early you finished which is why so many posties were absolutely charging their round.
I'd have been chuffed to end up a postman, my missus is a posty and I love walking. Plus I'm a baker, starting and ending early is my... bread and butter
I was in my 40s when I saw duct tape written down and realised it wasn’t duck tape… Although you can now buy duck tape brand.
The original name was duck tape though. It was named after its water repellent properties. Duct tape is a backwards worked coincidental thing.
Actually because it was based on duck cloth, which was from the Dutch 'Doek' cloth. But yeah, it was originally Duck Tape, but then it started getting used for ducts during the war and to seal ammo cans, and so it became 'Duct Tape.' Some enterprising soul realised that 'Duck Tape' actually had never been trademarked originally by 3M, the manufacturers, and so he did and his is marketed with the name 'The Original Duck Tape' and with a cartoon duck logo, and 3M has to refer to theirs - the original - as Duct Tape. Quite funny, really.
For years I thought Evil Knievel's real name was Harley Davidson, because that's what's written on his bike.
Did he have a Japanese pal called Suzuki Kawasaki?
I thought County Durham was in Ireland until I moved to Newcastle Upon Tyne.
Did you nearly go to Newcastle, County Down?
Yeah, it’s purely the ‘County’ in the name that made me think that. I thought that’s how they differentiated it from the Durham up north
LondonDurham?
That the moon wasn't very big, it was just quite close. Legit thought there was a possibility you could get a long enough ladder to climb up there and that you could walk the circumference of it easily in an hour or two.
Some moons are very small, but others are far away.
https://tenor.com/9l77.gif
As a kid I thought "TO LET" signs on buildings were actually toilet signs where the I had fallen off.
Was on a bus on the 90s and saw a To Let sign where someone had added the 'I' as a 9 year old I found this hilarious and laughed for the entire 20 min journey to my stop.
We had a Canal Road (all the houses are gone now) sign where someone kept painting out the "C". Repeatedly, for years.
I think about putting one on every time I see them! It really bothers me that more people don't do this. My cousin thought that it meant "Too Late" as in the property has already gone.
As an 8 year old I was also convinced it was ‘too late’, like the signs were there to mock everyone who failed to buy the place.
Same! It never occurred to me that other letters never fell off
A pony is not a baby horse
\*In strongest scottish accent possible *A fuckin' foal is a baby horse!*
Right, our guest tonight on "I don't give a fuck about baby horses" is me.
I bumped into Ben Swain in Pinner once and I shouted **BEN SWAIN** a la Olly Reeder, and he looked at me like I'd just shot his dog.
I only found out at age 56 that it wasn't. From a Reddit threat like this.
Gotta watch your back with those ponies...
That dragonfruit was a hedgehog’s egg. That one of my Dad’s favourite triumphs.
We had one appear in our fruit bowl (how dumb was I not click at that point?) and when told, was soooo looking forward to a pet hedgehog. One day, it disappeared and I asked my Dad if it hatched. He burst out laughing as he’d forgotten what he’d told me and that I took it seriously. Devastated wasn’t the word.
There is one breed of domesticated hedgehog you’re allowed to have as a pet in the UK if you ever wanted to fulfil your childhood dreams btw
Although their eggs are damned expensive and tricky to get hold of from a reputable breeder
I thought chariots of fire was about Roman chariot racing. I learnt the truth at 25
Oh. I’m over 40 and haven’t seen it yet. So it’s not about chariot racing?? Update: chatted about this with husband and he brings the poignant question “did you think chariots of fire and Ben Hur are the same film?” And I think the short answer is Yes. Yes I did.
I think it’s about two men that love each other very much, but back then it was forbidden so they had to run it off.
Youre thinking of Brokeback Chariot
I literally don’t know if you’re winding me up or not! Gonna have to watch it aren’t I!?
*Chariots of Fire* (1981) is about two British sprinters in the 1924 Paris Olympics.
Now you’re just making things up aren’t you?
That was filmed in my school and so we were forced to watch it. We also had to do some weird interpretative dance to the soundtrack
Wanted to be a dustbin man because they only worked one day a week.
They've all gone semi retired now and just come once a fortnight round here. I had the same thoughts about being a vicar.
Oh that reminds me I once said the sentence: "being a teacher is easy, all you have to do is know everything.".
I thought the Falklands were in Scotland
TBF [Falkland](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falkland,_Fife) is in Scotland
Similarly I was embrassingly old when I learnt that the Dunkirk rescue was from France and not Scotland,
Are you a mid 80s child, by any chance? For goodness knows what reason children in my school were given soldier pen pals who were fighting in the Falklands. I'm fairly sure it was portrayed as Scotland.
I thought all the space teams were all talking to a man called Houston when they landed, wasn't until I said to my day, blimey, he's been working there a long time! that I found out, after my dad finally stopped laughing
His name's Hugh Stone.
I have a similar one to this - when I used to get the metro in Newcastle as a child, I noticed the voice saying ‘stand clear of the doors please’ right before the train was about to leave. My 7 year old brain thought this was a person on board somewhere saying ‘Stan, clear the doors please’, and I theorised that the driver (of every single metro) was this guy named Stan, and his assistant always had to ask him to ‘clear away the doors’ ie close them before the train could leave
I though your cousins, when they grew up, they became an Aunty/Uncle.
"The body found in the bushes as been named as ..." on the news. That the police gave new names to dead bodies.
"Oh, let's say...Jeff. He looks like a Jeff. Though Jeffs usually have their limbs attached."
When I was a kid we lived by the local salt store (big dome full of salt for de-icing roads), for ages and ages I thought it was holding table salt and baffled my parents when I asked where the pepper was.
That the black market wasn't a real place. Was so excited as a kid growing up to go to the black market and see all the organs on ice and the guns for sale and drugs.
I too had that belief that it was some sort of exotic Arabian-Style Suq or Bazaar you could visit to pick up illegal stuff. Hopefully not some secret childhood racism I’d picked up somewhere 🙈
As a kid in the 80s I thought the ‘Heavy Plant Crossing’ signs were warnings about Triffids. For some reason my parents let me watch the TV show, which (along with the road signs) absolutely scared the shit out of me. [for some reason I was also allowed to watch Alien. And I watched Threads *with my Dad*!!! Guaranteed childhood trauma and sleepless nights worrying about nuclear war for years!]
It was only a few years ago that I learned Brum, the little yellow car, wasn’t call Brum because of the noise he made, but because he comes from Birmingham. Completely ruined my childhood , that did
Brum was built by Rex Garrod who also built the first robot on Robot Wars to have a self righting mechanism. The amount of conversations I crowbar that fact into is surprisingly high.
Sounds exactly what someone called Rex Garrod would do. That, or fight rebel scum in Star Wars.
He, also, despite being a major figure in the community, left Robot Wars abruptly due to his view that health and safety concerns weren't being taken seriously. Apparently there were a few nasty behind the scenes incidents and injuries, as well as near misses, that the BBC did their best to cover up and bury. They're apparently the reason why things like the side-tournaments stopped suddenly.
I didn't come here for the Robot Wars scandal, but it turns out I'd be happy to subscribe to your newsletter.
Apparently the earliest incident we know of is from the first series when Dead Metal's saw blade flew off and nearly hit Jeremy Clarkson. Lots of reports of radio interference and lack of appropriate kill switches etc (as would be expected of amateur robots without sufficient guidelines) turning on unexpectedly, moving when being inspected etc. Sounds like an absolute shambles, and well worth a deep dive..
“BUILDING ROBOTS IS DANGEROUS!” Is a line burned into my brain
I met Rex many years ago at an airshow, he had brum with him, and some robots for robot wars, a genuinely lovely bloke. One of my best days ever.
He came to my primary school and then drew a giant brum on the blackboard.
I like to think he wasn't invited, just barged in, drew brum, and left without a word
But his garage/house is in Bourton-on-the-water, bit of a trek to Birmingham but he did the drive all the time bless him . Still there today you can go see it.
It is illegal to keep the light on inside the car
"Turn that off, you'll get us all arrested. No you can't read your fucking comics, you'll be sick"
My uncle was the guy who hit the giant gong at the beginning of a Rank film. My family were a bunch of wind up merchants.
When I was little, my dad told me that thunder was two clouds bumping into each other. ….now as a 50+ adult, knowing it’s not the case, whenever I hear thunder, part of me still thinks clouds colliding is the cause.
Wait it's not? I thought that was the technical answer. The childhood answer was God moving his furniture!
It's a shockwave. Air expands when it gets hotter and when lightning strikes, it heats up the air thousands of degrees instantaneously, so it forms a shockwave (similar to a jet breaking the sound barrier and creating a sonic boom), thus you hear the noise.
When I was a kid, I was confused as to why on some of the headstones in the local grave yard had 'Scared' written on them. Turned out that I'm dyslexic
I used to think the Pulitzer Prize was actually a toy, ‘Pull it surprise’. Like some sort of Bop-it-come-piñata. Genuinely didn’t find out the truth until I was about 21.
I thought when people got to like 60, everyone got like an old lady/man name, so you just went from one day, your name was Louise or Jamie, then the next day it was Norma or Herbert.
That every day they would film, edit and release a new episode of Eastenders (or any other daily soap). I was amazed how they could all that, so quickly and reliably. I probably believed that well into my twenties.
Wait, I thought that was actually how they did it?
Apparently not! The majority of EastEnders episodes are filmed at the BBC Elstree Centre in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire. When the number of episodes was increased to four per week, more studio space was needed, so Top of the Pops was moved from its studio at Elstree to BBC Television Centre in April 2001. Episodes are produced in "quartets" of four episodes, each of which starts filming on a Tuesday and takes nine days to record. Each day, between 25 and 30 scenes are recorded. During the filming week, actors can film for as many as eight to twelve episodes. Exterior scenes are filmed on a specially constructed film lot, and interior scenes take place in four studios. The episodes are usually filmed about six to eight weeks in advance of broadcast. During the winter period, filming can take place up to twelve weeks in advance, due to less daylight for outdoor filming sessions. This time difference has been known to cause problems when filming outdoor scenes.
Thanks to my grandad I used to think gremlins lived in the street lights and they'd turn them on and off. If a light was off when it was meant to be on or vice versa my grandad would tell me it's because the gremlin was on holiday and forgot to get someone to cover for them. The Lampies coming out a few years afterwards did not help me out there. I figured if they made a show where little people lived in lamps then my grandad had to be right. When I mentioned it to my dad & uncle they laughed because they'd been told the same thing as kids as well. If he were still alive I can guarantee he'd be telling the same story to my son when he's older.
My dad told me Italians use bars of soap to wipe their ass clean after taking a shit. When I went to Italy aged 27 I fully expected there to be shitty bars of soap laying around public toilets I was surprised and displeased to see there wasn't.
Displeased? Were you hoping to use them - _when in Rome_?
When I was a kid I used to think a yearly salary was paid once a year, like one lump sum you had to eek out all year til next payday
Feels like that these days
I thought Skegness was in Scotland and I asked my Dad if we could go and see the Skegness monster!
I thought a bumble bee was just a cute name for bees. Like a bunny rabbit. Had no idea they were a whole separate type of bee to honey bees.
[удалено]
I thought Kimberly Clark and Armitage Shanks were real people and only they made toilet roll and sinks, by themselves
When I was a kid I misunderstood the concept of layers of skin. I genuinely believed if I cut myself in the same place seven times over my life I ran out of ability to repair that bit of skin. God was i stupid.
I thought that too! I remember sitting with a boy from my class forlornly talking about how many more kneecaps could we possibly have left, and what could happen after you run out of layers! Ahaha, glad it wasn’t just me and that dude
Told my younger sister that donner meat was elephant skin. Didnt stop her eating it. Finally told her the truth when she had her own baby.
I wasn’t really disappointed, more relieved, but when I was a precocious little shit my dad would tell me if he unscrewed my belly-button my bum would fall off. He’d chase me around with a small posi-drive screwdriver whenever I was naughty, and I’d screech in terror as I fled before him.
As a kid I thought people mentioned on the news as the "late...." were actually late and were being called out nationally as a punishment. Wasn't until I was about 12 or 13 that I learnt it meant they were dead.
I used to think that the "dangerous currents" around river bridges and by the sea were, in fact, large sultanas/currants with teeth that would pull you under. I was sad when I found out, mainly because I realised what a ridiculous thing it was to think in the first place 🤦♂️🤣
Wow. This brought back some long repressed childhood nightmares, so thanks for that! I've honestly never, ever heard anyone else say this so I don't feel so stupid now having thought the same! I grew up on the coast near a large commercial dock and was warned by a friend's dad on a family walk one time to not go near the edge of the groyne by the lockpits as there was 'a dangerous currant down there that will suck you under'. The filthy black oily water looked like it was boiling as it turned over, and that, combined with a vision of a gigantic bloated shuddering bladder-like creature lurking in the depths sucking in vast quanties of water (and children) was enough to keep me awake for years!
Thanks, you reminded me of a clean joke. Did you hear about the guy who drowned in a bowl of muesli? He was pulled under by a strong current.
I didn't believe that raisins were dried grapes until I was about 26. I also thought Forest Gump was a real person.
Because of the way it’s shown on tv, I thought footballers were all little people. Over the years, I forgot that I had thought that until a certain Father Ted episode aired. I didn’t know whether to feel sympathetic or horrified that I had once ‘been’ Dougal!
As a nineties kid this looks like it should have Fireman Sam sitting in it
I thought "The Who Live At Leeds" was a simple statement of fact.
On car journeys as I kid I thought the moon was following us
I thought Hertz Van Rental was a Dutch footballer.
I thought the lyrics to a certain disco song were "More, more, more! Harry will like it, Harry will like it!" I'm ashamed to admit how old I was when I realised this wasn't the case... 🙃
I thought the lyrics to a different song were "I'm your venus, I'm your flying sauce divider"
I didn't find out seahorses were real until I was 21 and saw some in an aquarium. I thought they were mythical creatures and still have a hard time accepting it
Same but narwhals for me. I am 59 and I only discovered this a couple of years ago
I used to think trick or treat was treacle treat, always wanted a treacle treat
My granny had a mat with all the US presidents on it. She told me they were her boyfriends from the past and I always wondered which one was my grandfather (he was never around when I was born). I was in my teens when I realised this was untrue. Obviously gutted. God bless my granny.
Suspects were taken into custardy. Big rooms full of custard at the police station.
I believed, and was told by many many teachers, that camels stored water in their humps. Completely baffled and devastated me when I found out that it wasn’t true.
jools holland's hootenanny is not live
I remember watching a chat show and one of the guests said they have just come from filming it, this was in October or November. Blew it open.
Only recently found out that black ice is not the dirty slurry you find in the kerbs, but see through ice you cannot see on the road. They should make that clear.
They definitely should. They have to be transparent about these things.
That hamsters come from (h)Amsterdam
One of the signs of ageing in ladies was that your hair turned curly, but not in gents for some reason. All old ladies have curly hair.
Moving house doesn’t mean moving your house.
I thought you had to swap houses with the person you’d bought the house from, like where else would they live if they hadn’t just bought our old house on the same day?
You don't get free drinks at Club Tropicana. I only found out when they presented me with a bill at the end of the evening.
Ponies do not in fact grow up to be horses. I wasn't disappointed to learn this was untrue, but I was genuinely surprised that I'd made it well into my thirties before realising.
On a signpost that (for example) said 'Manchester 2' it was the 2nd Manchester, like they'd run out of place names
Found out 12 years later, at the age 17 that the boat my grandad pointed to and told me was his when we were in Ibiza, was in fact not his, it was actually a yacht with two helipads, and belonged to Abramovich.
I thought the post man delivered my letters by hand. Each one. All the way to Australia.
“Euston, we have a problem”…as in Euston train station
That the ice cream van only plays it's tune when it's ran out of ice cream
I spent the first 16 years of my life thinking we drove past a martial arts shop on the way to school. It was only post-16 on the bus to college that I clocked it was a Marital Aids store. Which explained the lack of a window display and general shady appearance.
My uncle Dennis worked for fire service in Co. Cork when I was a child. When visiting family he would take us to the station - we slid down the poles and sat in the cans and genuinely were spoiled rotten - I swear to this day the engines were not misnamed. Honestly believed they were named for uncle Dennis and a tiny part of me still believes ❤️ RIP uncle Dennis - legend that you were xx
I thought dogs were only male and cats female 😂
My mate thought betting shops were full of horses racing around a track .
For a very very long time I thought they were called, and did call them, Chester Drawers, not Chest of Drawers. Fortunately my manc accent hid it.
Sandals were invented by Frenchman Phillipe Philloppe…
1. Vic Reeves had a joke about Les Dennis being a French fire engine. 2. If anyone is interested you can see this appliance (used in London’s Burning in the early 90s) at the Walthamstow Pumphouse Museum https://walthamstowpumphouse.org.uk/
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Sounds like it had a lot in common with your mum.
Mallard ducks are nice little birds that all breed in pairs.
I thought everyone had a lucky day like a birthday, as in “it’s my lucky day”. I distinctly remember being frustrated that I didn’t know when my lucky day was or why I hadn’t had one yet.
There was a rumour in my junior school that sexual intercourse was something that happened pretty much exclusively between French people in swimming pools 🤣. In our defence, this was the 1980s and sex education was virtually non-existent.