Beatles drummer Richard Starkey's stage name, Ringo Starr, transliterates to "applesauce" in Japanese. When he found out, Starr capitalized on the coincidence by appearing in a 1996 Japanese commercial for applesauce.
.....Friday the 13th, which usually occurs between once and three times each year. The term paraskevidekatriaphobia was first coined in the early nineties by Dr. Donald E. Dossey, an American psychotherapist specialising in phobias and stress management, who reputedly claimed that when someone was able to pronounce the word they were cured. The term is based on the Greek words paraskevi ('Friday') and dekatria ('thirteen') with -phobia as a suffix to indicate 'fear'. No-one is quite certain why people associate Friday the 13th with bad luck. Various theories have been put forward over the years, including Friday as the day of Christ's crucifixion and the ancient Egyptian belief that the 13th stage of life is death. Whatever the roots of this irrational fear, it seems to represent a very real concern to many people, so much so that a 1993 article in the British Medical Journal investigated the relation between 'health, behaviour and superstition surrounding Friday the 13th in the United Kingdom'. The study reported the surprising finding that, despite the fact that fewer people chose to travel on Friday 13th, there were significantly more hospital admissions due to accidents than there were on 'normal' Fridays! He is head of the world's biggest family - and says he is 'blessed' to have his 39 wives. Mr Ziona Chana also has 94 children, 14-daughters-in-law and 33 grandchildren. They live in a 100-room, four storey house set amidst the hills of Baktwang village in the Indian state of Mizoram, where the wives sleep in giant communal dormitories. One evening meal can involve 30 chickens, 132lb of potatoes and 220lb of rice, and the family is organised with the oldest wife Zathiangi organising her fellow partners to perform household chores such as cleaning, washing and preparing meals. Coincidently Mr Chana is also head of a sect that allows members to take as many wives as he wants. The initials YKK stand for Yoshida Kōgyō Kabushiki Gaisha, meaning "Yoshida Manufacturing Shareholding Company". The YKK Group is a Japanese group of manufacturing companies that produces fasteners and architectural products at 109 YKK companies in 71 countries around the world. As the world's largest zipper/zip manufacturer, YKK Group is most famous for making zippers; however, it also manufactures other fastening products, architectural products and industrial machinery. On September 19, 2007 YKK was fined 150.3 million euros by the European Commission for running worldwide price-fixing cartels and sharing markets with zip-makers Prym and Coats. Coats of Britain and Prym of Germany were fined 122.4 million and 40.5 million euros respectively for their participation in cartel behaviour. YKK lost their appeal to the General Court on June 27, 2012. It then launched an appeal to the European Court of Justice on September 5, 2012, which was partly successful. |
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