"Propose to an Englishman any principal, or an instrument, however admirable, and you will observe that the whole effort of the English mind is directed to find a difficulty, a defect, or an impossibility in it. If you speak to him of a machine for peeling a potato, he will pronounce it impossible : if you peel a potato with it before his eyes, he will declare it useless, because it will not slice a pineapple" : Charles Babbage
"The not unblack dog chased the not unsmall rabbit across the not ungreen field" : Politics and the English language George Orwell
"A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely fool-proof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools" : Mostly Harmless Douglas Adams
"It ain't ignorance that causes all the trouble in this world. It's the things people know that ain't so" : Josh Billings ( Henry Wheeler Shaw) (1818 to 1885)
"The accident has been moved from the motorway" : Various UK media
"Water is not a renewable source" : Water company spokesman, BBC Radio 2, 22 March 05
"Cigarette dog-ends are non biodegradable" : BBC1 TV, Points West, 21 Feb 2005
"Right 98% of the time, and don't care about the other 3%": Member LittleGrin's signature on http://forums.devshed.com/
'This statement is untrue': Hilbert ? paradox
'The QUERTY keyboard is optimised for easy use' : Various
'An automobile was invented that ran on water. But the oil companies stifled the invention': Various
'The Americans never went to the moon. It was all done in a studio': Various
60% of Brits think the Queen is provided by god: Survey circa 2002
'The Americans only invaded Iraq for the oil': Various
'Pressing the red record button while playing can be fatal': Portable cassette recorder user guide circa 1976
'Can any bus service rival the fine Hanley to Bagnall route in Staffordshire, England? In 1976 it was reported that the buses no longer stopped for passengers. This came to light when one of them, Mr. Bill Hancock, complained that buses on the outward journey regularly sailed past queues of up to thirty people. Councillor Arthur Cholerton then made transport history by stating that, "If these buses stopped to pick up passengers it would disrupt the time-table."
'The whole is greater than the sum of its parts' (re data fusion & ???): Often attributed to Aristotle
'There is too much talk about currency, banking, and defense etc, we should be discussing the important things about Scotland's future: pensions, national health, social benefits': lady Scottish independence yes voter, BBC TV 2015
'America dragged Britain into the Second World War': guest on BBC TV 'Sunday Morning Live' 22 November 2015
'People who put in all the commas betray themselves as moral weaklings with empty lives and out-of-date reference books': Lynne Truss [1]
'It is tough to make predictions, especially about the future.': Yogi Berra Similar quote from: Niels Bohr & Samuel Goldwyn
'While the South Pole lies on a continental land mass, the North Pole is located in the middle of the Arctic Ocean amid waters that are almost permanently covered with constantly shifting sea ice.' Wikipedia North pole 23 October 2015
Acquiring knowledge is like doing a jig saw puzzle, many of the bits on their own don't make sense, but they are all needed to give a complete picture: Eric Gibbs
