Why do they put peanuts on a bar?

In more up-market pubs you often see bowls of peanuts placed at regular intervals along the bar. Many people wrongly assume that these are for eating.

Accompany me, for a moment, as I drift off to a Chinese restaurant: at the end of the meal (and often at different points during the meal) a bowl of warm, slightly lemony water is brought to the table. cue much joking along the lines of "this soup's really watery" etc. Some ignorant or uninitiated diners do actually assume that it's another course, an accompaniment to something already on the table, or a palate cleanser such as the role sorbet occupies in high western cuisine.

Exactly the same thing happens with peanuts on a pub's bar, although the mistake of actually eating them is one that is made far more often. If you do take up a handful of peanuts from the bowl in front of you and throw them into your mouth you are actually committing a gross social faux pas, and if you look carefully you will see other, in-the-know patrons laughing at you from behind their pint glasses.

So what are they actually for?
It is well known that people in pubs, particularly men, perform only a cursory handwash after spending a penny in the smallest room, and properly drying the hands after this is almost unthinkable. The peanuts on any bar are salted, and salt is an excellent absorber of water. Dipping the fingers into a bowl of peanuts and having a bit of a rummage allows the salt on the peanuts to absorb excess water, reducing the lubricating effect it has on fingers, decreasing the likelihood of glass slippage and therefore droppage and spillage.

But why are the peanuts necessary?
If this was the case, I hear you think, surely a bowl of salt would be all that was necessary? Why the peanuts?

There are a few of reasons why the bowls include peanuts:

1. Aesthetic reasons: In much the same way that a bowl of pot pourri is much more attractive than a bowl with deodorant sprayed in it, a bowl of peanuts usually compliments a pub's bar in terms of colour and texture much better than a pillar of salt would, especially when damp.
2. Cost & efficiency:
1. The peanuts are coated with the salt, which allows the bowl to be more full whilst actually including a minimum of salt.
2. Usage time: The salt absorbs water from the fingers, but can only hold so much. A salted peanut allows water to be absorbed by the salt and then passed through to the encased peanut, which stores the water and dries out the salt. Salt by itself would quickly become saturated and need replacing. Also, the shape of the peanuts means that there is a certain amount of airflow through the mixture at all times, which allows excess moisture to evaporate from the surface as well as being stored inside the peanut.
3. Disposal: The salt sticks to the peanuts. When a given bowl of the salt/peanut mixture has reached the end of its operational life, it is much easier to dispose of and then replace. A bowl of wet salt is far more fiddly to deal with. Also, if a spillage is to occur, salt that is attached to peanuts is far easier to clean up than a bowl full of salt all over the carpet.

A final point

You may have heard the assertion that studies have revealed traces of an average of twenty-seven different people's urine in a bowl of bar peanuts. This gives a reason beyond simply avoiding a display of social ignorance as to why you shouldn't eat the peanuts from a bowl in a pub.

Social poll: Fireworks displays

It's Friday the fifth of November, and time for fireworks, frolicking and fun with friends and family.

Enough of that... Here's a poll for you: How do you take your fireworks? As always, comments are welcome from whichever point of view you choose!

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Where will you be watching fireworks this year?

At a private venue, with just friends and (or) family;  At a public event;  Both!  Neither.

Actually, come to think of it, it'd be nice to know why you're letting off fireworks (if, of course, you are): for Guy Fawkes, or for Diwali, or another reason altogether?

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No, this post is not corrupt. It's in binary. Try googling "binary decoder"!

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A complaint to the BBC: The Papal visit to the UK, 2010

In case you didn't notice, between the 16^th and 19^th September 2010 the head of the Catholic Church, Pope Benedict XVI, visited the UK. This visit was, largely, at the expense of the UK taxpayer and included heartfelt and publicly broadcast insults and slurs against a large portion of these taxpayers. The British Broadcasting Company, a supposedly impartial media corporation, covered this event but paid almost no attention to the significant number of people who were upset by many aspects of this occasion, including the twenty thousand who marched in protest on the day of the Pope's visit to London.

With this in mind, and in my role as a licence fee payer, I have complained to the BBC. My complaint is included below and I encourage anybody who pays a British television licence fee (this directly funds the BBC and is obligatory if you own a television set in the UK) and is also disappointed in the unequal weighting they routinely give to secular viewpoints to do the same. You can complain online using the form at this address and although it would obviously be better for you to voice your own opinions in your own style I have no problems with anybody using my complaint as a template:

The BBC's coverage of the Pope's visit to the UK between the 16th and 19th September was explicitly biased in favour of the country's Catholic community and was noticeably deficient with regards to atheist, secular, humanist and other non-religious issues, views and opinions.

There was a march during this period which included almost twenty thousand people protesting about the visit being funded by money raised from taxes (as well as other aspects of his visit). Pitifully few campaigners were interviewed in comparison to the plethora of Catholic leaders and supporters who were encouraged to voice their opinions over what is supposed to be an impartial news service.

This is not the only situation in which the BBC has shown ignorance of an increasingly large demographic: the non-religious. I am disgusted that my licence fee payments are funding an organisation with such a blatant disregard for the opinions of a significant portion of its customers.

Social poll: Are you religious?

Please take a couple of seconds to answer the question below. For the purposes of this poll you are religious if you believe in a god or other religious entity and follow at least in part their teachings and the moral code of that religion*.

In terms of religion, how would you describe yourself?
	I follow a religion
	I am agnostic
	I am an atheist
	Other (please comment)
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* It is, of course, possible for your personal moral values to fall in line with those of any particular religion without you actually following or believing in that religion**.

** Contrary to popular belief (in certain circles) it is entirely possible to have personal moral values without following any particular religion.