Odd factoids

[Kempstonian]

One of the first shopping carts/trollies was introduced on June 4, 1937, the invention of Sylvan Goldman,owner of the Humpty Dumpty supermarket chain in Oklahoma. One night, in 1936, Goldman sat in his office wondering how customers might move more groceries.

He found a wooden folding chair and put a basket on the seat and wheels on the legs. Goldman and one of his employees, a mechanic named Fred Young, began tinkering. Their first shopping cart was a metal frame that held two wire baskets. Since they were inspired by the folding chair, Goldman called his carts "folding basket carriers".


In the United States, 24,000 children are injured each year in shopping carts/trollies.

^^^ That could have been on QI... you would have got good points for that factoid!!

 

[Drago]

Shopping trolleys were actually invented by the Roman's, who used old gladiatorial chariots for the task. After the deaths of several hundred innocent shoppers through suspicious spinning blade stomach injuries the authorities finally wised up and and banned them. Aside from Moses briefly riding round the shops in his Triumph the idea was forgotten for nigh on 20 centuries.

 

[classic33]

^^^ That could have been on QI... you would have got good points for that factoid!!

Well there's the "Dead Ringer".

The fear of premature burial, the "deceased" being in a coma for instance, not actually dead, led to many devices being patented to allow the "deceased" to alert those above ground to their plight.

One of the most simple of these was a cord attached to the persons finger. The cord leading to a bell on the surface, which would ring when the cord was pulled. The "deceased" became the dead ringer whilst the person watching for any activity would be working the graveyard shift. Their job was to get the "deceased" coffin dodger, for whom the bell tolled, to the surface, having been saved by the bell, and to a physician.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

The first shopping trolleys were tested as amphibious vehicles. But due to several design flaws the project was abandoned. The result of this can be seen by observing the number of trollies in canals.

 

[classic33]

IN the first case of its kind, Tesco was prosecuted for knowingly allowing shopping trolleys to be dumped in a river and fined £30,000.

A total of 33 trolleys out of a clutch of 51 were found in the River Chelmer, Chelmsford, Essex, during a clean-up operation.


Around 100,000 trolleys are stolen from supermarkets across the UK every year.

 

[david k]

The 'dolly' came first, not many people realise that, they invented the trolley so Dollys had something to push

 

[Ming the Merciless]

The dolly is what the crates of vegetables are brought onto the shop floor on.

 

[raleighnut]

Mention a 'Dolly' to my Nan and this is what she'd have thought of,

 

[Dave7]

Mention a 'Dolly' to my Nan and this is what she'd have thought of,

View attachment 446310

What no mangle ?

 

[Drago]

Mangles were invented by Joe Mangle from the hit sitcom, Neighbours.

 

[raleighnut]

What no mangle ?

Not since she got something caught in it.

 

[Drago]

Not since she got something caught in it.

A certain Derek and Clive song comes to mind...

 

[Spinney]

The callsign for British Antarctic Survey flights is 'Penguin'

 

[colly]

Trolley buses were actually designed specifically for delivering wheeled, wire shopping baskets to the, then, new supermarkets.

 

[classic33]

Argos & Green Shield Stamps share the same founder, Richard Tompkins.

He realised that the stamps were coming to the end of their life, so started Argos. Rebranding the Green Shield Stamp stores and re-using them and their distribution centres for Argos.

The first purpose-built shop opening on the A28 Sturry Road, Canterbury in late 1973.