This is my second edition of Interesting Factoids; an extension to the (very short) list of awesome facts that I enjoy knowing about. Have fun!

I am a jelly-filled doughnut: President John F. Kennedy gave a speech in West Berlin on June 26, 1963. He said in his speech, “Ich bin ein Berliner.” What he should have said was “Ich bin Berliner” because that means “I am a person from Berlin.” What he actually said means “I am a jelly-filled doughnut.”

2Pac: Rapper Tupac Shakur (known as 2Pac) died in 1996, but is still releasing albums. How you ask? While he was alive he made 12 albums, but only five were released before his death. So his record company is still releasing his music that was made about 20 years ago.

Paul is dead: A lot of people know about this, but I still find it cool. When British rock group, the Beatles, released their Abbey Road album, there was a conspiracy that one member, Paul McCartney, had died. He hadn’t appeared in public for a while, so the public went crazy and searched for “clues” by playing the records backwards, which gave them a whole lot of gibberish that might have sounded like “Paul’s dead”. Also, the album art of Abbey Road supposedly was a “clue” (Lennon leading wearing white representing the priest, Starr second wearing a suit representing the mourners, McCartney following not wearing shoes representing death, and Harrison in the back wearing denim representing the gravedigger.) After coming out to the public as alive, Paul McCartney released a live album titled, “Paul is Live”.

Rubeus Hagrid: While on the subject of Britons, author JK Rowling (pronounced like bowling), who wrote the “Harry Potter” series,  said that her inspiration for Hagrid, the half-giant groundskeeper at Hogwarts, was when she was in a bar and a group of frightening bikers came in. One guy sat next to her, making her quite uncomfortable. He looked scary, but Rowling reports that all he talked about was how his cabbages were coming along.

The Office: A popular American show, “The Office” was originally British (sorry, can’t get my mind out of the UK). The British edition aired season one in 2001 and made two seasons of six episodes. America made an adaptation of “The Office” running from 2005-2013. It is one of seven adaptations but is the longest running out of them all. Other adaptations were made in France, Germany, Canada, Chile, Israel, and Sweden.

Pluviophile: The term for a lover of rain. Not to be confused with Pedophile. Very different.

Curiosity killed the cat: This phrase is actually not the entire phrase. The full saying is, “Curiosity killed the cat but satisfaction brought it back.” So don’t be afraid to wonder a bit.

Blood is thicker than water: Also not the full phrase. The entirety is “The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb” meaning relationships by choice are stronger than relationships by birth.

Anglophones: The term used for English-speaking people. Similar to this is Francophones (French-speaking people) and Germanophone/Teutophone (German-speaking). Some terms like this are weird like Helenophone (Greek-speaking) and Sinophone (Chinese-speaking).

Levels of the British Isles: Sorry about all the British facts, but this is very important. There are four classifications of the British Isles. 1) The British Isles: these include Ireland and the main island of Great Britain. 2) United Kingdom: this includes the main island and Northern Ireland, but not the rest of Ireland. 3) Great Britain: the main island. 4) England: this is a section of Great Britain like Scotland and Wales.

Pound = lb: The symbol “lb” for pounds comes from the abbreviation of the constellation Libra, the scales.