Twenty-five percent of the world’s cranes are in Dubai (population 2.3 million) – a total of 30,000 cranes, or one for every 77 people.
The Spanish syllable “guad,” which begins so many place names, comes from Arabic “wadi,” which means “valley.”
Wonder why Americans handle eating utensils differently from Europeans, who (if right-handed) keep the knife in their right hand and eat with the fork in the left? Some say this was a secret signal colonists used to tell if they were sharing a meal with a royal sympathizer.
A few drops of Angostura Bitters mixed with club soda helps nausea.
How Cheeta, the sidekick to Johnny Weissmuller’s Tarzan, made it to the U.S. is unknown. One story is he was smuggled here from Liberia under an overcoat aboard a Pan Am flight in 1932. The problem is that trans-Atlantic commercial airline service didn’t start until 1939.
This article appears in December 12 • 2008.