Wednesday 21 November 2007

Guess who invented the scissors!


It's strange how life throws you little lifelines sometimes. I just can't seem to fit everything in this week and was quite frankly starting to panic. Miraculously, my daily dosage of 'Interesting Facts of the Day' came to the fore when it pointed out that Einstein calculated in his youth that putting his socks on in the morning and taking them off at night would occupy him some hundreds of hours during the course of his life, and thereafter went sockless. So, I've done the same this week and although my tootsies almost dropped off from exposure yesterday, I've been ever so productive with the extra time.

In fact, sockless as I was, I had so much time on my hands that I frivolously clicked on 'Random Fact of the Day' and found out it would have been significantly cheaper to build an identical replica of Titanic than to make the 1997 film of the same name. The original ship was built in 1912 for £1.5m, the equivalent of £66m in 1997. James Cameron's film cost about £200m.

And then this got me thinking about the film industry that used to thrive just down the road in Hove and nearby Shoreham By Sea. There were some quite pioneering filmic things done there at the turn of the century and in my experience not that many people know about it. Its fascinating stuff and if you're into film or local history its worth checking out the Hove Museum, where there is a permanant exhibition on display all about it.

Let us know if you know any interesting Brighton filmic facts.

And if you must know, apparently Leonardo Da Vinci invented the scissors...

Sarah

4 comments:

Charlotte said...

Did you know that the airport used in the Da Vinci code is actually Shoreham airport? You really do learn something new everyday :)

Anonymous said...

Well, its not very Brighton related, but on the bizarre facts theme, apparently the cake on the front of the Rolling Stones 'Let it Bleed' album was baked by a young Delia Smith! Who'd have thought?

Kent Larsen said...

Da Vinci did a lot of things, but he did NOT invent scissors. (at least not unless he lived in the 14th century B.C., which is what would have to happen to explain the scissors found in Egypt that date to that period).

Anonymous said...

Although commonly ascribed to Leonardo da Vinci, scissors (in their very crude form and nothing like modren day scissors)were likely invented in 1500 BC in ancient Egypt. These were probably shears with the joint at the far end. More modern cross-bladed scissors were invented by Romans around AD 100 and its perhaps the scissors more as we know them today, that are ascribed to Leonardo da Vinci...

Sarah