Sarah's Fun Fact Friday No 1!

Hello and welcome to my section of ‘The Wonderful World of Us’ – I am the English Muffin part to Laura’s American Pie! So what can you expect from ‘Sarah’s Fun Fact Friday’? – fun facts of course!!!!! Facts you can drop in to conversation with your friends, at the pub, over dinner, when you're not sure what to say, or in my case to impress an interviewer (well, he asked me to tell him something he didn't know!).

So lets get started – I will ‘Sarah’-moniously carry you over the threshold to my first fact:

We've all heard about being ‘carried over the threshold’ after arriving at home after a wedding but where did the term come from? Well way back in the days of Shakespeare houses used to have floors covered in hay (or thresh) to keep warmth in – only issue was the thresh tended to blow out the door so they invented a ‘threshold’ – a step like piece of wood or stone placed beneath a door to stop it getting out. And there you have it – so that’s why you are ‘carried over a threshold’! It was no doubt partly so brides didn't trip on their dress as they entered as well but I haven’t seen too many significantly sized ‘thresholds’ recently so I don’t think it’s a modern day issue as much!

Did you know that Shakespeare was rumoured to be gay!?!?! Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets, apparently not intended for publication. The majority of these sonnets address the poet's love for a young man. There is no historical evidence to indicate Shakespeare was bisexual or homosexual; after all he was a married man with three children! However, the poet's intense romantic feelings for the young man in the sonnets have led some to believe Shakespeare was having a homosexual affair – now I’m not one to gossip but 154-that’s a lot of 'love'!

And for my final fact: Recent studies have found that 1 in 3 people in Brighton are gay! I wonder if Shakespeare ever visited?!?!?! Well if he didn’t he missed out – I love it down there – (How much? See HERE) and it helps that my Dad’s a local lad (well from Hastings but it’s all in East Sussex).