Trivia

What do the people in China eat and drink these days? Researchers checked out an enormous sampling of households there to make a list, fairly predictable. Six most common items in the cupboards: 1. Cooking oil. 2. Rice. 3. Tea. 4. Pasta. 5. Sugar or sweeteners. 6. Beer.

In spatterings of population all the way east from Seattle to Oslo, one of the standard daily greetings among men is “Morn.”

Q. What’s the name of that pointed gardening tool used to poke planting holes in the soil?

A. A dibble.

Q. Why did Red Skelton give up his early try at becoming a lion tamer?

A. He saw a lion maul the legendary trainer Clyde Beatty.

Your grandparents or theirs probably believed the bedroom window always should be open at night for the fresh air. But some medicos of late say this: Your pulse, respiration and blood pressure go down when you go to bed. Incoming cold air forces your system to work to maintain body heat. That can interfere with the best of rest.

Eighty percent of a spider is liquid.

Credit Honore de Balzac, too, with this: “It is easier to be a lover than a husband, just as it is harder to be witty every day than to say pretty things now and then.”