Me versus noses and faces

Cut off your nose to spite your face

Regular readers will be aware that I quite literally tackle these cliches for the benefit of mankind's knowledge but after the sword incident I am not going to cut my own nose off. 

But I won't let that stop me investigating this phrase for you dear reader(s), oh no. Let me introduce you to Tycho Brahe (1546-1601). Brahe, if you can't be bothered to click the Wikipedia link, was a 16th century Danish nobleman, astronomer and alchemist. 

'What's that got to with a nose?' I hear you cry, well I'll tell you. Brahe had it cut off in a duel in 1566.

Did he let this get him down? No. He had metal prosthetic ones made for him. They may have been silver, gold or copper (or brass) but let's retrace those steps a minute. He had a metal nose. Probably stuck on with glue. That would have broken the ice at parties. It's thought that he might have worn different noses for different occasions. How cool is that? 

Brahe went on to discover a supernova, map the heavens better than anyone before him, is awarded The Order of the Elephant, had eight children, became the imperial astronomer to the Holy Roman Emperor, owned possibly 1% of the entire wealth of Denmark and had an elk that died after falling downstairs when drunk.

Doesn't sound like his face was spited at all by the whole nose cutting-off incident.

Conclusion One: Look after your nose. You only get one - you don't want to lose it.

Conclusion Two: But if you are an in unfortunate nose off situation you might want to consider a metal one.

Conclusion Three: Try to keep your elk on the ground floor if you think it's had one too many.

Me versus pens and swords

The pen is mightier than the sword

This was a fairly simple one.

I stabbed myself in the back of the hand with a pen. It hurt a little bit.

I stabbed myself in the back of the hand with a sword. And now I'm typing this one-handed from hospital.

Conclusion: Pens are for writing, swords are for cutting, thrusting, slicing and stabbing. Don't confuse them.

Me versus Cocked Hats

Knock it into a cocked hat

My first thought before I tackled this one was 'what the heck is a cocked hat?' I turned to my old friend Wikipedia which informed that it's another name for a bicorne or, if you can't be bothered to click the link, is also known as 'that hat Napoleon used to wear'.

Rather than waste my money buying one I took a trip to the nearest fancy dress emporium and hired one. I realised afterwards that this limited me on what I could knock into it. If I wanted my deposit back then I certainly couldn't knock soup in it or mud or used tissues from my current bout of Australian Killer Flu.

The actual Napoleon in an actual hat

I discovered another problem when I got the hat home. It won't stand up on it's own. The crown of the hat is shaped so that the hat will, more often than not, topple over. I was going to have to lean the hat up against something before I could knock something in it.

Eventually I wedged it up against the desk and knocked a screwed up piece of paper in. It was disappointingly unsatisfying. I might as well have knocked something into a bin.

Conclusion One: If you want to knock something into a hat, use a more versatile one that you can place where you have things you might need knocking in. A boater perhaps.

Conclusion Two: Or buy a bin.