Have you never ... ?

Previously on the Charles Fudgemuffin blog I've advised readers to never trust the polls. However, this week I'm going to be a hypocrite, as I take a look at polls investigating various things that people have never done.

The following statistics and are collected from various surveys, research and studies*, and reveal the percentage of people that have never done certain activities!

Even adults can climb trees!

* Conducted by Resolution Foundation, Honest Organic study, Ofice for National Statistics, Kayak, Ginger Research, Iceland, O2, You Gov and others.

1) Never climbed a tree = 67%

Incredibly, two thirds of adults have never climbed a tree! Wow! They don't know what they're missing!

Obviously I don't climb trees nowadays, because I'm old and boring, but when I was young I used to frequently climb trees, and I kind of assumed it was just part of being a kid. If you ask me, anyone who didn't climb a tree as a child had a deprived childhood.

Things that unintentionally made me laugh (part 2: How to survive an ice age)

I recently watched a very amusing TV show which I felt deserved credit for how much it unintentionally made me laugh. The show in question is Snowpiercer, so here's a short summary of the plot:

"Oh no! There's an ice age. What shall we do?"
"I know! Let's build a train!"

Scientists try to save the world, but it turns out they're clueless muppets and they end up making an ice age by mistake. So to survive, mankind decides to build a train that goes round and round the world.

You know, as you do when there's an ice age!

I imagine the planning stage, when faced with this ice age, went something like this:

Create your own calendar wallpaper!

A new year is here and with a new year comes traditions such as making new year resolutions (in England), eating twelve grapes (in Spain), or throwing water on everybody (in Thailand). Of course, wherever you are, a new year is also the perfect occasion to create your own calendar wallpaper for your computer!

There's a great website called Calendar Labs which lets you create your own calendar wallpapers, and they do most of the work for you. You simply upload your photo, then select a few options, such as the month, where you want the calendar positioned, and wallpaper size, then click 'create wallpaper' and it resizes your photo and adds a monthly calendar.

If you're feeling lazy, I suppose you could use the same photo for every month, and quickly churn out twelve almost identical calendar wallpapers for every month of the year. Or if you prefer variety, and if you're not lazy, it only takes a few minutes to upload a different photo for each month.

Here's a set of monthly calendars that I made using some of the covers from my books and short stories...

January:

January's calendar is based on the cover to my scifi short story, The Darkness And The Light, which is set on a planet where each day lasts for the equivalent of one hundred and twenty four Earth years. As you can imagine, this leads to fluctuating valuations within the property market.

The Darkness And The Light

Quiz of the year (2020)

When people do a 'quiz of a year', they usually include questions on significant news and events from the year in question. However, because I'm such a self-obsessed person, er, I mean ... because this year has been a disappointing year for some people, I'm instead going to feature a quiz of the year about the Charles Fudgemuffin blog!

All of the following subjects were featured in blog posts found on the Charles Fudgemuffin blog throughout 2020.

Water: Home to this camera shy duck,
but how much does it weigh?

To help make things easier for new readers, each question is multiple choice, so if you don't know the answer you can guess!

1) January: Google

In January the Charles Fudgemuffin blog focused on the weird and wonderful world of Google.

Can you remember how much a pound of water weighs according to Google?

A) A pound
B) 8.36 pounds
C) Five gallons
D) 2.36 miles

A Merry Christmas message for nerds!

At Christmas time it's traditional to wish others a Merry Christmas, and that's a tradition which I like to respect here on the Charles Fudgemuffin blog.

This year to mix things up a little, the Christmas message from Charles Fudgemuffin is specifically aimed at nerds. So without further ado, here's this year's Christmas message...

Controversial Christmas questions

Here on the Charles Fudgemuffin blog I've regularly featured Christmas themed blog posts every Christmas, and I've also occasionally featured blog posts on controversial questions. However, this week I combine the two, as I take a look at controversial Christmas questions.

Merry Christmas from Charles Fudgemuffin!

Where do you stand on the following controversial Christmas questions?

1) When should you put your Christmas decorations up?

I'm a big fan of Christmas decoarations. Last Christmas on the way to work I used to walk past a street where every house was done out in spectacular Christmas decorations, and it looked impressive and always put me in a good mood (at least until I got to work!).

However, when is the optimum time to put your decorations up?

Quirks of the English language (part 2)

English is one of the most popular and commonly used languages in the world, but it's also a language with many quirks. Here are a few more of them...

Unfortunately, I didn't have a photo of my foreign neighbour Keith
receiving eight counterfeit beige sleighs from feisty caffeinated
weightlifters, so this photo of one genuine sleigh will have to do.

1) I before E.

Except when your foreign neighbour Keith receives eight counterfeit beige sleighs from feisty caffeinated weightlifters.

Weird.



2) Why does 'fridge' have a D in it but 'refrigerator' doesn't?

Surely it's a stupid idea to insert extra letters into an abbreviation!