Reading: Stranger Than Fiction: True Stories by Chuck Palahniuk
Music: Flook
TV/Movie: Wanted
Link o' the Day: The Official Charlie Chaplin website

Tuesday's Rumor file comes on Wednesday because yours truly is suffering a pretty bad cold. Therefore, this Tuesday's Rumor file (on Wednesday) features everyone's favorite maladies: colds and flus...



Rumor has it... "Flu" is one of those rare terms in which the shorter form is older than the longer form. In status-conscious Victorian England, it was considered poor breeding to suffer the same illnesses as the lower classes. Sir Henry Langford of the Royal College of Physicians was the first to coin the term "influenza" as a specific malady similar to the flu, but affecting the upper classes exclusively.

Rumor has it... Despite new virulent strains of flu that appear each year, there are actually fewer active strains of flu now than there were two hundred years ago.

Rumor has it... A child conceived while one parent is suffering a headcold is seven times more likely to be a boy than a girl. If both parents have headcolds at the time of conception, the child will be three times more likely to be a girl.



Rumor has it... The native people of Easter Island, despite frequent contact with the outside world, are the only people on Earth who appear to be immune to colds and flus.

Rumor has it... Wonder if you have a cold or a flu? Weigh yourself. People with colds weigh on average two kilos more than their normal weight while people with flues weigh two kilos less.

Rumor has it... Biggest buyers of homeopathic remedies for cold and flu? Doctors, pharmacists, and employees of pharmaceutical companies.

Rumor has it... To combat colds, child actress Shirley Temple Black recommended two days in bed cutting out paper dolls and drinking peppermint tea.



Rumor has it... Comedian Charles Fleischer could only do the voice of Roger Rabbit while suffering the later days of a cold. He recorded his part in Who Framed Roger Rabbit in the space of the final two days of a headcold and when it came time to do some re-recording during the final edits of the film, Fleischer spent the a week wandering a Los Angeles hospital until he came down with a cold again and could once again do Roger Rabbit's voice exactly as he had done it earlier in production.

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With all the love I've been seeing lately for Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd, where's the love for the little tramp? Okay, Charlie was the biggest for a while and the renewed interest in Keaton and Lloyd's work is fairly new. Still, today's link takes you to The Official Charlie Chaplin website where you'll find all the info you'd ever want on one of the silent era's biggest comedy stars. Check it out.

Cheers!