Trivia

Rapid reply: Quite right, the people in Portofino, along the Italian Riviera, can’t even paint a shutter on a window without showing a sample of the proposed new paint to the city council for an OK.

Out of Peru the Spanish explorers took gold and the potato. They fairly well worshipped that gold. Who benefited from it back then doesn’t much matter anymore. It was the potato that eventually fed the world. The inheritors of conquistador treasure include you and me and McDonald’s.

Q. How fast can the good paddlers move their canoes?

A. About 7 mph.

Q. What’s the most common cause of death for people over age 100?

A. No one disease. Computer studies of death records show nothing. So medical researchers have to guess from interviews with survivors. Belief is that most centenarians purposefully set target times, then simply shut down the bodily machinery as planned. They will themselves to die even as they’d willed themselves to live.

It’s reported that Americans spend considerably more than $10 billion a year on games of chance. Not counting elections.

Q. Why are produce department cucumbers waxed?

A. To hold the moisture.