Welcome!
I’ve written 12,817 of the 50,000 words I need to complete NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month. Actually NoWriMo for non-Americans, as the “National” refers to the US), and I’ll be going in again as soon as I finish this newsletter.
So let’s quickly answer that question you want to ask me.
“Have you any tips for me about how to not sound like a tourist when I visit Georgia. My Georgian is not as good as I’d like it to be!”
Absolutely! To sound like a Georgian, you just have to learn the word “ara” and say it as much as you can. It’s written არა, and means “no”.
Everybody says it here all the time. I have seen Georgians walk up to other Georgians on the street and start a conversations with “Ara…”
And you can find out more about other cultures in this week’s Main Feature!
Enjoy!
Killer List: 10 Superstitions About Chicken Feet From Around The World
- Wearing a necklace of chicken feet around your neck will prevent a wrinkly neck in Malaysia.
- Hanging a chicken foot from your assault rifle in Florida is the best way to “own the Libs,” as they all now identify as animals according to a very reliable source on social media.
- If a chicken walks through wet concrete, then walking over the imprints of its feet will make you impotent in Australia.
- The best way to get rid of a banshee is to summon it by poisoning a family member until they are on the brink of death, then leave a sackful of chicken feet on your neighbour’s property to lure them away (Ireland).
- In Antarctica, chicken feet are left outside throughout the day, then licked as a savoury dessert in the evenings. However, licking all three “toes” in one go is said to cause blindness.
- Chicken feet are regarded as the ultimate sign of the devil in Italy, as three feet can be overlaid in such a way as to create an inverted pentagram.
During the height of the wave of kidnappings in the 1970s, some people even resorted to wearing t-shirts printed with chicken feet to scare away superstitious members of the Mafia. - Children in Canada bury chicken feet between Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve, from which, they believe, the following year’s Christmas tree will grow.
- In Haiti, dead bodies are buried with chicken feet mixed into the earth of the grave to protect against witch doctors who might seek to turn the deceased into their zombies. The feet are believed to latch onto the fingers of grave robbers in an unbreakable grip, allowing the family to identify the witch doctor and demand the spell be broken.
- A chicken foot with a middle toe which has curled into a circle is said to bring a long life in Nepal.
- In 17th-century England, it was claimed that if a woman swallowed a whole chicken foot before intercourse, it would improve fertility and guarantee a boy.
In 21st-century England, it is said that if a man inserts a whole chicken foot into himself before intercourse, it will somehow increase his pleasure.
What I Discovered This Week
Read!
I finished Hydra, the second book in Matt Wesolowski’s Six Stories series. The series is about a true-crime podcast, raking up old murders and trying to get a better idea of what really happened by piecing together the stories of six of the people involved. It’s very well-written and hard to put down if you’re in the mood for a true-crime style mystery.
Read!
I also finished re-reading Dorothy L. Sayers’ Whose Body? which is 99 years old this year, and still great fun. If you don’t know it, it’s like if Bertie Wooster was pretending to be Sherlock Holmes. FREE via Project Gutenberg.
Listen!
Find of the week has to be this band with a very rude name, and weird music video. This is exactly what I like: a band playing music like nothing I’ve ever heard before, but it just sounds right.
Erm, if you want more from them, then use the links under the video. Depending on your search engine settings you might get difficult to explain search results if you just type the band name in and hit “search”
#askthemanwhofoundoutthehardway
(Excerpted from my newsletter dated 05th November, 2022. Sign up for the full, up-to-date experience!)
