Why the toast always lands butter side down?

The science of Murphy's law
by Richard Robinson

Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong... When you most want something, chances are that you will spoil your chance to succeed...

Start looking for Murphy's Law, and you'll find it everywhere. 

Buses go round in threes, the queue you join always goes slowest, when your hands are full your nose starts to itch, you think of several important things to remember just as you are falling asleep....

Can there ever be a rational explanation?



The answers turn out to be one part scientific fact to three parts psychology.

Excerpt:

The length of a minute depends on which side of the bathroom door you are on.

Never let a computer know you are in a hurry.

Short cuts are often the longest route.

Why is the tune you hate most, the one you can't get out of your head?

The noodle effect: When you finally ask the supermarket assistant where the noodles are, they're right beside you.

The best way to be late is to give yourself plenty of time.

Patience is something you admire in the driver behind you and scorn in the one in front.

Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will always regret.

The place you want to visit is just over the edge of the road map.

Lame duck

A person or thing that isn't properly able to function, especially one that was previously proficient.

Origin

The description of 'lame duck' is often applied to politicians who are known to be in their final term of office, when colleagues and electors look toward a successor. It is also sometimes used to describe office-holders who have lost an election but have not yet left office.

In recent years (as of 2006) both George W. Bush and Tony Blair, unable to see out further electoral victories, have been faced with such mutterings, for example:

In May 2006, The Washington Post ran an article titled 'Bush's Political Capital Spent', including the opinion:
"Such weakness has unleashed the first mutterings of those dreaded second-term words, 'lame duck'."

Who's the boss...

Horizon: Is seeing believing?

Horizon explores the strange and wonderful world of illusions - and reveals the tricks they play on our senses and why they fool us.

We show how easy it is to trick your sense of taste by changing the colours of food and drink, explain how what you see can change what you hear, and see just how unreliable our sense of colour can be.

• Neuroscientist Dr Beau Lotto and volunteer Kim Read.

  
  The chair illusion known as the Beuchet Stuhl chair shows us how easily our sense of vision can be fooled.

But all this trickery has a serious purpose. It's helping scientists to create a new understanding of how our senses work - not as individual senses, but connected together.

It holds the intriguing possibility that one sense could be mapped into another. This is what happened to Daniel Kish, who lost his sight as a child. He is now able to create a vision of the world by clicking his tongue which allows him to echolocate like a bat.

And in a series of MRI scans, scientists are now looking to find out if Daniel's brain may have actually rewired itself enabling him to use sound to create a visual image of the world.

The full documentary is available here:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x18zpjf_horizon-2010-is-seeing-believing-hdtv_shortfilms

Warning: ads pops up during the documentary

To cut to the chase

To cut to the chase

to focus on what is important; to abandon the preliminaries and deal with the major points.

• All right, let's stop the idle chatter and cut to the chase.- aller droit au but
• After a few introductory comments, we cut to the chase and began negotiating.

Etymology: based on the idea that, when describing a movie, the writer can cut (interrupt) the story and explain the exciting parts, which usually involve a chase

To get in someone's hair

To get someone out of one's hair
to cause someone to stop annoying oneself.

• What do I have to do to get this guy out of my hair.

to stop annoying someone.

• Will you get out of my hair! You are a real pain!

Peeve

Peeve (informal, slang)

To cause to be annoyed or resentful, to irritate; vex; annoy, something that irritates; vexation
1. A vexation; a grievance. 

2. A resentful mood:

• To be in a peeve about the delays.
• it was a pet peeve of his- bête noire
• Seeing signs spelt incorrectly is a pet peeve of mine.

Optimist!

To go bananas

This expression has several different meanings. 

When someone goes bananas about/over something, he/she becomes very enthusiastic about it. 
The expression is considered slang and is generally used in informal contexts. 

Here are a few examples:

• The students went bananas when they heard that Mani was going to address them.
• We all went bananas when we saw Steffi Graf walk into the gym.
• The children went bananas when they saw all the icecream.

To go bananas can also mean to drive someone crazy or mad. 
When used in this sense, "to go bananas," means the same thing as "to go nuts" and "to go crazy". 

For example,

• The constant questions made him go bananas.
• Ana thought she would go bananas sitting all alone at home.
• Being in the company of her son was driving Mala bananas.

"Cool bananas" is an expression, which is frequently used in American English as an exclamation. It is often used to mean "wow". Here are a few examples.

• Satish got an A in the exam. Cool bananas!
• You've got a new bike? Cool bananas!
• Cool bananas man! That is really wonderful news.

Necessity is the mother of invention

Difficult situations inspire ingenious solutions!

Lucky charm

Clover, trefoil: plant

Shamrock : Irish emblem

Clubs: cards

• He needed the Queen of clubs for a royal flush.

It's no use crying over spilt milk

It's no use crying over spilt milk or  Don't cry over spilt milk.
Prov. Do not be upset about making a mistake, since you cannot change that now. 

• I know you don't like your new haircut, but you can't change it now. It's no use crying over spilt milk. 
• OK, so you broke the drill I lent you. Don't cry over spilt milk.

Grime

Grime: 
Syn: dirt, grunge, filth, muck - saleté

Out of a clear blue sky

To come out of a clear blue sky or come out of the blue
suddenly; all of sudden; without warning. 

• Then, out of a clear blue sky, he told me he was leaving
• My sister Mary appeared on my doorstep out of the blue, after years with no word from her

What a tangled web we weave!

Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive” is a quotation by Sir Walter Scott

We also talk about a 'web of lies"

It means that when you tell lies or act in a dishonest way you create problems and complications which you cannot control.
When someone tries to deceive another person, by lying and making up stories, he or she will make a mess of the deception.

If you tell a lie, then you will have to make up more lies to support the first lie, and then even more lies to support the other lies, and in the end you have a mess.