Sooo, a new book out for the World Cup. 250 fabulous things about Germany. You know, things that make the place great, mean that people should love and respect it:
The hexagonal pencil: developed by Lothar von Faber in the 1840s.
OK, all hail the inventors of the hexagonal pencil!
Now, how does that Dambusters tune go?
In
Isn’t it:
da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da,
da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da.
da-daa-da, da-diddle-da-da surely?
C’mon, credit where it is due. Just as Britain can claim credit for discovering vaccination, antiseptics, penicillin, the first of the antibiotics, and subsequently other important pharmaceuticals, Bayer, a famous German chemicals company deserves credit for the discovery of Aspirin in the 1890s:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspirin
Until penicillin, there really were precious few pharmaceutical drugs which were effective treatments and Aspirin was among the few. Aspirin was recognised as an inexpensive pain-killer from the beginning, of course, but its other valuable properties have only become recognised in the last 50 years or so. It is widely prescribed nowadays to patients with heart disease because of a proven track record in reducing the incidence of heart attacks.
Quite right. And at much the same time Bayer introduced heroin.
I G Faber also worked out a great wheeze for all that chlorine they produced in their dyeing process too, they made the first poison gas used in WWI. Zyklon B? Lets not go there.
I dare say Eichmann used one of those Faber pencils to keep track of all those gold teeth his pals took out of the mouths of the ‘untermensch’
Bastards
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