Things we just know, for no reason!

 Things we just know, for no reason!

Hi Readers, another day, another post. Quite a good way to spend the early days of my holidays after a busy week away to start with. I also think that the body is encouraging me to take things easy for a few days as there are a number of 'hotspots' crying out for some love and attention 😖

I left a little message at the end of my last post as to what this one would be about, but let me tell you where the idea came from to start with.

Last week I drove from the Gold Coast up to Caloundra in Queensland, a trip that took 3 hours each way for a number of reasons. On the way up the traffic was fairly slow all the way to Brisbane due to the severe storm damage from the night before, and the road was littered with tree debris.

After finally getting to Caloundra and fulfilling a long held promise to catch up with great friends Anne and Lee, it was back in the car for the trip home.

This was a nightmare, and after travelling at no more than 30 kmh for about an hour I definitely had plenty of think time while crawling along at a snail's pace.

There was a discussion on the radio and for the life of me I can't even remember what it was precisely about, but at one point a caller said that Sydney weather is more volatile than Perth's because Sydney is further north.

BANG!! My attention level piqued, because I know for a fact that Perth is further north than Sydney. Why do I know that?

I heard some people arguing about it one day, so rather than continue listening to the argument, I decided to find out for myself, and that fact has stayed with me since.

Maybe for some reason we perceive Sydney to be further north as there are more places to associate it with, or compare it to ?

Why? Probably because I didn't know myself and was interested to find out.

It is a piece of trivial information that has no bearing on my life, but by finding this one out, it dawned on me that there are so many other things like this that I now know, that 99% of the rest of the world could not give the slightest bit of interest to.

For the record :

   Sydney.  33.8688° S, 151.2093° E

   Perth      31.9514° S, 115.8617° E

And why do we remember these things???

I have no idea. Sometimes I have trouble remembering what I watched on television last night, but I can remember how may seconds in total that Dustin Martin had the ball in his possession when he kicked 4 goals in the 2020 Grand Final !!

They can be great discussion starters in those awkward moments of silence we all experience from time to time, but please, choose ones that are appropriate to each situation!!! You could use them when you feel that they can add further to what you are talking about, making you look pretty good with your "amazing knowledge" when in fact it may be the one and only thing that you know about that subject !

In recent years I have collected quite a few of these facts and figures, and many of them are prone to change as they might be feats of endurance, weather changes or sporting records just to name a few.

Added to this, I have been fortunate to have been able to present workshops at maths conferences in recent years, and I have used these facts and figures as ways to get participants interested to start with.

For all I know, they might have been the only interesting part of the workshops to start with !!!

So Readers, let me bore you with some of the things that have stuck with me, and then perhaps it might encourage you to think about things "that you just know" for no particular reason.

I bet that some of you might even check the validity of some of these, but as far as I'm aware, they were accurate at the time that I wrote them down back in July of 2023.

If you catch me out, I have no problem, I'm sure they are still pretty accurate. Just by getting you to challenge me on them is a great response, I'll embrace it !!

Here we go....

Now it's 2.00.35  !!!!!!!

For my overseas Readers, please forgive me for my indulgences with my favourite Australian Rules Football team, but it ALWAYS gets a reaction here !!!

There might be facts and figures here that interest you, or most likely they bore you to tears. However, I'm sure you must "know some things that you just know" that would similarly excite me !!🥱

Feel free to share some if you have the time!

That's about it for today Readers, I must admit I'm feeling really glad that I've been able to punch out a few posts over recent days, as it's clearly something I love doing, but just don't organise my time well enough to do it.

As for what my next post will be about, I'm unsure, but there's a very good chance that some inspiration will be coming from a book written by ultra distance runner Nedd Brockmann. Thanks for lending it to me Squidgy!!!

Until my next post Readers,

Cheers 😁