Five things I didn't know last week - August edition

Hello readers,

Apologies for my lax attitude towards blog updates of late. I've been a bit quiet, probably because I'm too busy lying around the beach in island paradise, hugging animals and saving the world whilst astride my magical unicorn.

As exciting as our lives seem right now, you'll be reassured to know that living on a tropical island also involves a lot of sitting around in comfortable clothes, drinking beer and eating popcorn whilst watching old episodes of CSI (See exhibit 1, below).

Of course it's not all sunshine and rainbows. One of the main things you have to make your peace with is that if you're away, you miss things. You're not there to support your friends, and you're not there to see some wonderful things happen in their lives. You find yourself scrolling the instagram feeds of wedding guests, stalking facebook albums of proud grandparents and checking group whatsapp messages every hour. A scheduled skype date becomes top priority. To plagarise Russell Brand, remember when you made a plan to meet someone somewhere, and if they weren't there you had no way of contacting them because your only form of communication was the landline at your house? Remember?? And if they weren't there then you just had to go home. Or to their house and hope they were in. Hasn't stuff changed, eh?

In case you were wondering, I'm still learning stuff. Top things I've learnt this week:

1. An octopus has three hearts.

2. Skinks (the sort of reptiles you get in Mauritius) have two penises.

3. This baby pigmy marmoset exists (link).

4. You cannot easily pee whilst holding a match to provide light. Too much time pressure.

5. Coconuts in the Seychelles look like a lady's bottom (link).