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Did you know … ?

Five things you probably didn't know about doing nothing

1. Extreme sports, excessive eating, constant worrying and false ambition can steal your energy. Avoid them.
2. Don't be afraid to do nothing, because while sitting down and relaxing you are actually doing something productive: saving energy.
3. Every hour less we sleep costs 50 calories of energy. So don't feel bad about sleeping in these holidays.
4. Too much exercise can be harmful. Stay away from performance-oriented sports and choose a brisk walk instead.
5. Mental stress also uses up energy. Reduce stress—buy a pet or take 5 minutes out to read an old SESL test result. It's bound to help you with sleeping (see point 3 above)!

Spend a penny

If you're really hard up for something to do this holiday, log on to the National Public Toilet Map at www.toiletmap.gov.au and see how your council rates in the provision of these most necessary of public assets. Our only comment is that the good people of Hunters Hill must only ever go at home and, conversely, the parochial types from "the Shire" must have small bladders.

SESL motto for 2008

The SESL motto for 2008 (with apologies for the imperial units) is "An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory", a quote that we have borrowed from Friedrich Engels, who we are sure would have been a SESL client had he lived another hundred years. We’re hoping that our clients take our lead and get out there, collect their samples and submit them to the lab for some hard data and practical advice!

Ten things you may need to know this Christmas break

1. "Stewardesses" is the longest word typed with only the left hand and "lollipop" with the right. And “typewriter” is the longest word that can be typed using only the letters on the top row of the keyboard. (So are pepperwort, perpetuity, proprietor, repertoire, repetitory and a few others.) And the average person’s left hand does 56% of the typing.
2. No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver or purple.
3. There are only four words in standard English that end in "-dous". They are tremendous, horrendous, stupendous and hazardous, and we aim to use each of them regularly in our reports throughout 2008!
4. A "jiffy" is an unofficial unit of time, popularly defined as 1/60th of a second. Some clients have suggested that we should introduce this as a fourth official turnaround time for reports alongside normal, priority and urgent.
5. If the population of China walked past you in single file, it would take 20 years for them all to pass you. By which time a whole lot more people would have been born.
6. Peanuts are one the ingredients of dynamite … sort of. Peanut oil can be processed to produce glycerol, which is used to make nitroglycerin, which is absorbed into a clay called kieselguhr to make dynamite.
7. With all the discussion about global warming, how about this one? The cruise ship QE2 moves 3.3 m for each litre of diesel that it burns.
8. There are more chickens than people in the world. After all, how many do you eat?
9. Women blink twice as much as men.
10. Rubber bands last longer if you keep them in the fridge. So does film.