Two elderly ladies meet at the launderette after not seeing one another for some time. After inquiring about each other's health, one asked how the other's husband was doing.
"Oh! Ted died last week. He went out to the garden to dig up a cabbage for dinner, had a heart attack and dropped down dead right there in the middle of the vegetable patch!"
"Oh dear! I'm so very sorry," replied her friend. "What did you do?"
"Opened a can of peas instead."
Channel tunnel proposedIn 1855, a proposal for a tunnel under the English Channel was reported in the New York Daily Times, which, according to French engineer M. Loèpold Favre, would in five years connect Boulogne to Dover. The 18½ mile (30-km) tunnel under the Channel would also need about 1½ mile (2-km) under the shores for each approach at the ends. Excavated at no less than 82-ft (25-m) below the sea bed, the tunnel would be lined with a double arch: one of granite and impermeable cement and an inner arch of thin, iron plates with perforations to reveal even slight leakage. Instead of smoke-producing locomotives, an atmospheric railway using a compressed air tube would carry passengers and freight such as coal. Ventilation shafts would rise above the highest water level in islands formed by excavated rock.« |
