If you've ever watched a lineman up on a telephone pole (do we still call them that?) or an electrical tower of some sort, you first gasp at their bravery. But you may have also wondered how they learned to do it. They say you learn from your mistakes, but in this kind of work, one mistake can be fatal. Tom Scott visited the National Grid Training Centre in Yorkshire, UK, to see how that training goes, and of course the first thing he does is climb an electrical pylon. Don't look down! Being an internet star must pay well, because he keeps doing scary things even though he does have a normal sense of self-preservation that is lacking in certain stunt YouTubers. And that's why we can feel his trepidation like a normal person. But this is just tower climbing. If there were real electricity involved, Tom would have had to undergo a lot more training.        

Another thing about this video is our opportunity to look at how other countries get their power. Coal is being phased out in the UK, and natural gas has to be liquified and shipped in. The US has plenty of oil and natural gas, and plenty of room for wind and solar, while European countries have to import so much fuel of one kind or another. That's why electricity prices and heating bills are so much higher in western Europe.

Also: In America, a lineman's job can be even scarier.

The school bus is coming down the street, but it's not there to take your kids to school. This bus is specially for dogs! Denzel Morrison owns Ruff and Puff Doggy Day Camp in Calgary, Alberta. He also drives the bus, which may just be the best job in the world. The doggy bus picks up 10-14 dogs at a time and shuttles them to one of several private dog parks where the dogs can have a good time and run off energy. The dogs really enjoy their adventures. They get to ride, run, and play with familiar canine friends, so what's not to love about it? After all this activity, the dogs are delivered to their homes ready to relax with their human, who is also tired after work. Rover is ready to snuggle on the couch, since he's just been thoroughly walked.  

In this video, Morrison explains how he naturally fell into work with dogs, and came up with the idea of a bus that could transport dogs without using cages. The dogs really appreciate that. See more of Ruff and Puff's doggie adventures at Instagram and TikTok.  -via Born in Space

I've often said that the most memorable part of weddings and holiday family gatherings are the parts that go wrong. Those can become funny stories later. But when things go wrong at a funeral, it can be sad, terrifying, or really gross. After all, there's a dead body involved. There have been some really memorable funerals that go way beyond a drunk uncle or mourners showing up hoping for the deceased's possessions or a free meal. One US president's funeral was interrupted by his parrot, who swore loudly at everyone who attended. An elephant killed a woman, then showed up at her funeral to do more damage. An embarrassing mishap at Queen Victoria's funeral led to a new British royal tradition. A funeral in San Diego was interrupted by a police chase right through the church. But the worst had to be the king whose corpse exploded as he was being buried. Read about nine funerals in which something went very wrong -all different disasters- at Mental Floss. You can read the list or listen to it on a video.

In 1928, Walk Disney Studios released a cartoon called Steamboat Willie. It was the debut of a character called Mickey Mouse, and also of his girlfriend Minnie Mouse. Ever since, Mickey has been the flagship character and the symbol of Disney. The character has been close to entering the public domain several time: in 1955, 1986, and in 2003, but each time the copyright was extended by legislation. Since there has been no copyright extension laws enacted in the past twenty years, the earliest version of Mickey Mouse will enter the public domain on January 1, 2024.  

But that only applies to the original version of the mouse as he was designed for Steamboat Willie. Disney still has a copyright on later versions, and has trademarked the mouse, too. Trademark law is different, however, and is designed to protect companies from logo infringement, not the character itself. Disney will be watching us in the new year to see how the rubber-hose version of Mickey will be used. Read the details of the soon-to-be public domain Mickey at Variety. -Thanks, WTM!

(Image source: Wikipedia)

Sky Elements Drone Shows launched almost 1500 drones to present the story of The Nutcracker in a series of 3D vignettes over North Richland Hills, Texas, a week ago Sunday. Unlike the ballet, the drone show took only seven minutes. It included 700-foot-tall images, the biggest ever created with flying drones. They included Santa Claus, who does not appear in the story of The Nutcracker, but it's hard to have a Christmas show of any kind in Texas without St. Nick. The drone show set two Guinness World records, for the largest aerial display of a fictional character and the largest aerial image. A good time was had by all.

There are people in this world who are as nice and friendly as can be most of the year, but who get so tired of the hype around Christmas that they become Scrooges, and dismiss Christmas with a "Bah! Humbug!" There are also people who love Christmas, but know the only parts worth telling someone about are the disasters. Thank to the fading art of sending letters, we have a glimpse into Christmases past from some well-known people who didn't always have a merry Christmas. Virginia Woolf wrote in a 1964 letter:

Do not expect wit or sense in this letter, only the affection of a drugged and torpid mind. Oh an English Christmas! We are not Christians; we are not social; we have no part in the fabric of the world, but all the same, Christmas flattens us out like a steam roller; turkey, pudding, tips, waits, holly, good ·wishes, presents, sweets; so here we sit, on Boxing day, at Rodmell, over a wood fire, and I can only rouse myself by thinking of you.

Letters of Note has a collection of excerpts from 13 such letters, many of them filled with vinegar. But the very last one from 1940 is a reminder that no matter how bad your Christmas turns out to be, it could be much worse.  -via Nag on the Lake

Experience should tell us that just because someone works in a bakery, that doesn't mean they know how to create a reindeer in icing. Especially when that someone worked in the women's lingerie department yesterday. Or maybe in the butcher shop, because these cakes are certainly butchered. They were told it doesn't have to look exactly like a reindeer; it's a symbol, so you just have to convey the idea of a reindeer. Some of these cakes fall short of even that. Jen Yates at Cake Wrecks gave all these reindeer their own names:

Now, Droopy! Now, Poopy! Now, Boner! ...and Pancake!
On, Slappy! On, Psycho! On, Peanut! And Lunch Break!
To the top of the shelf! To the stores at the mall!
Now wreck away, wreck away, WRECK AWAY, ALL!

See eight not-so-tiny reindeer and Santa Claus, too, ready to wreck the halls at Cake Wrecks. And if that's not enough Christmas chaos, see more Christmas wrecks and even more here.

The image above shows us a star cluster officially designated NGC 2264, which is informally called the Christmas Tree Cluster. It's about 2,500 light years away, and features young stars between one and five million years old -give or take the 2,500 years it took the light to reach earth. The stars range from a tenth the size of our sun to seven times its size.

This is a composite picture, taken by three kinds of telescope cameras. The green is the gas among the nebula, taken by an optical camera from the National Science Foundation’s WIYN 0.9-meter telescope. Foreground and background stars in white were revealed by infrared data from the Two Micron All Sky Survey. The blue and white blinking lights are from X-rays detected by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. Did I say they blinked? They do, like twinkling tree lights, shown in an animation in the NASA article about the image. The twinkling effect was added for the video, but the stars really do twinkle, just not in sync with each other. That, and the choice to render the gas image in green, is NASA's Christmas gift to all of us. -via Bored Panda

(Image credits: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: T.A. Rector (NRAO/AUI/NSF and NOIRLab/NSF/AURA) and B.A. Wolpa (NOIRLab/NSF/AURA); Infrared: NASA/NSF/IPAC/CalTech/Univ. of Massachusetts; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare & J.Major)

Christmas cards have only been around since 1843, and they didn't start out with cozy pictures of Christmas trees or wise men following a star. The greetings were nice, but the illustrations were designed to make you say, "Whaaaat?" and then maybe laugh at their sheer absurdity. A recurring theme was food taking revenge on people who cooked and ate it. Above, we have two turkeys wishing the cook a Merry Christmas as they shove him into the fire on a spit. Below, A piece of meat and a Christmas pudding do the same to a cook, with the help of some geese.

The gallery includes animals behaving badly, too. A flock of songbirds marches in single file (more or less) carrying torches. They look less festive and more like they are coming to burn your house down. Roaches drink your coffee, or maybe your hot cocoa. A monkey pulls a cat's tail. You get the idea. But what's this one all about?

Maybe they are on their way to terrorize another chef. See a gallery of 27 baffling vintage Christmas cards at Flashbak. -via Damn Interesting

"The Christmas Duck Song" suddenly lands, 14 years after "The Duck Song" by Bryant Oden captured the internet. "The Duck Song," with an animated video by Forrest Whaley, became an instant meme in 2009 and spawned three sequels, a children's book, and many parodies. The song is a riff on the old joke, set in a lemonade stand instead of a bar because it was written for children.

In the Christmas version, the duck annoys Santa Claus, who never has grapes because he lives at the North Pole. It ends with less annoyance and more joy and generosity than you would expect from a duck. Because it's Christmas.  

Christmas trees, originally a German custom, became popular when German immigrants came to America, and when Queen Victoria's German husband, Prince Albert, put up Christmas trees for the royal family. Over time, the fad led to a shortage of fresh trees in Germany, and people began making artificial trees out of feathers. In the US, the reason we started using artificial trees was that a real Christmas tree festooned with candles or hot incandescent lights was liable to burn the house down.

Quite a few people tried designing a Christmas tree that wouldn't catch fire, but they didn't look much like the real thing. And then a brush company that made everything from toothbrushes to toilet brushes got involved. The same technology that produced toilet brushes made artificial trees look fluffy enough. So we can thank toilet brushes for the look of our modern Christmas trees. Read how all this came about, including some odd failed patents, at Atlas Obscura.   

(Image credit: SeppVei)

With his series Lost in the Pond, Laurence Brown has made a career of comparing the place he grew up in, the UK, with the United States, where he has lived for the past fifteen years or so. Both places celebrate Christmas in a big way, but it turns out the most popular songs played on the radio over his lifetime are different, depending on the country he was in at the time. It never occurred to me to wonder whether the Christmas songs we've heard over and over for decades ever made it in Britain, but apparently a lot of them didn't. Brown highlights eight Christmas songs he never heard before coming to America, ranked in order  from best to worst, and gives us his initial impressions. I mostly agree with his rankings, but for different reasons.  

In colonial America, people drank way more alcohol than would be considered safe today. They rode horses instead of driving cars, the water wasn't all that safe, and alcohol eases pains that medical practices couldn't help. George Washington certainly drank his share, and distilled whiskey on his farm Mount Vernon.

Like many people, Washington enjoyed eggnog for the holidays. The president's eggnog recipe survives (although not written by Washington's own hand), and it's quite, let's say, hearty. The recipe calls for four kinds of booze: brandy, whiskey, rum, and sherry, in addition to milk, cream, and eggs. The finished product seems to be about 35% liquor, and would have preserved the milk and eggs for a long time. His kitchen would produce it by the gallon when guests were expected. A good time was had by all. Read about Washington's drinking habits and his eggnog recipe at Mental Floss. -via Strange Company 

Happy Holidays everyone!

Here is a Santa Claus from every province, from west to east and through the territories.

1. British Columbia pic.twitter.com/FY3J8sWU5e

— Craig Baird - Canadian History Ehx (@CraigBaird) December 21, 2023

Craig Baird is a historian with a podcast called Canadian History Ehx. As a Christmas gift to his followers, he harnessed artificial intelligence to create a series of Santa Claus portraits for each Canadian province and territory. Sure, there are stereotypes involved, but they are all lovingly rendered. He even takes back the Santa from Nova Scotia by giving him a re-do at the end.

A Santa Claus from every province, from west to east and through the territories.

11. Nunavut pic.twitter.com/o3FkC9vdlc

— Craig Baird - Canadian History Ehx (@CraigBaird) December 21, 2023

Wait until you get a load of Quebec's Santa Claus. See the entire collection of Canadian Santas at Twitter, or at Thread Reader if you prefer.

Until today, the only thing I knew about Charles II was that he's the reason the current British King is named Charles III. Charles II ruled Scotland, then went into exile during the reign of Oliver Cromwell, and later became king of England, Scotland, and Ireland. You can bone up on Charle's place in history at Wikipedia, because this video is only concerned with his personal life, meaning his many lovers. Charles II had a wife plus a long line of mistresses and flings that ended up in the history books. They were court members, actresses, commoners, friends of friends, and even at least one spy. One of them could be called the love of his life, but she was not his wife, and neither did she keep him from other women. None of this was kept secret; after all, the king was the king in the 17th century, and popular opinion had no sway over his behavior. Come to think of it, even today when the king has no real power, popular opinion still doesn't have any sway over his behavior.