Friday Four

1. Old fashioned advertisements for Coca Cola for a nickel aren't just a cliche. Cokes really did cost a nickel apiece for seventy years. Here's why.

2. A reader asks The Straight Dope how the Queen of England answers the phone and, as reader Snedcat puts it, "chuckles abound".

King George V, Elizabeth II's grandfather, and his younger sister Princess Victoria often spoke by telephone. She once began the conversation with "Hello, you old fool," only to be interrupted by the operator: "Beg pardon, Your Royal Highness; His Majesty is not yet on the line."

The Queen has a great line for guests who forget to mute their cell phones, too.

3. Mmmm! Lemon! A few weeks ago, we and my in-laws were eating dinner out. I was having fish and chips, and there was a lemon on my plate and one in my wife's water. The baby conveyed a desire to dine on my lemon wedge. "Why not?" I thought. "That's a problem that will solve itself." So I gave her my lemon wedge, fully expecting to have it back shortly.

It was very amusing to watch Pumpkin eat the lemon, her face alternating between that odd expression one gets when biting into a lemon, and smiling. I guess she liked her lemon, based on that and her request for the second.

So much for that idea!

4. Amusing web site of the week: Clients from Hell. This blog consists mainly of short anecdotes from the field by freelancers and occasional samples of particularly memorable quotes, such as:

When I print this, the second page comes out upside down! Could you make that page be upside-down on the website too so it doesn't confuse people?

The material is mostly from the field of web design, but one needn't be a web designer to smile -- or, sometimes, sympathize.

-- CAV