You're unlikely to be psychic. Its more likely to be a lucky hit.
Most who call themselves psychic just say what most people want to hear. For example - psychic medium has a show where a few thousand people attend.
They start by saying they are in contact with a man or woman who has passed. Half the audience puts their hand up.
This is an older person probably over 70 - quarter of the audience put their hand up - they will have lost a parent or grand parent.
This person has a bushy beard - 30 people put their hand up
Their name begins with R - 5 people put their hand up.
See its all to do with numbers, eventually the psychic will get someone who identifies their Grandfather Russell.

BUT
Remember when Patty Hearst went missing? I had a dream that she was underground and couldn't get out. She was found tied up in a cupboard. Now is that psychic? Or just co-incidence
Years ago I remember waking up very early in a panic convinced that hubby had been in an accident. I was in a panic all day. When he came home he said he'd had a close shave not long after he started work that morning. The machine he operated got clogged and the usual thing was to turn off the machine, crawl inside and unclog it. Whilst he was under the machine someone pushed the button to restart it. Fortunately someone else pushed the emergency button really quickly.
Psychic???

There are stories about people who missed being injured by warnings or co-incidences at major disasters.  A chap I worked with was due to travel to New York the day before 9/11 but decided to stay with friends in Florida for a few extra days.
There's the story of 2 women that should have been at the top of tower 1 having breakfast but they didn't get their alarm call so missed that disaster.

I personally think there is something intangible about us humans. We can probably all cite times when something weird happened (or not). However as to being psychic??? I don't think so.

The only way you're likely to earn money at it is by becoming a snake oil salesman. (Psychic medium)

I was wondering how many other great public figures were struck down by syph.

After a quick meander round the internet I found that Syphilis is far from being just the disease of the common man or woman.  Quite the opposite.  Now read on...

Famous painters Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Paul Gaugin and Edouard Manet are known to have died from syphilis.
Joining the list are classic authors Oscar Wilde and Guy de Maupassant.
Lower down the class system are the infamous gangster Al Capone who eventually succumbed to syphilis as well.
Even Shakespeare and Abraham Lincoln are theorised to have had the disease.

Digging into Wiki, we can add the composer Frederick Delius and Karen Blixen who wrote  Out of Africa and was also a Danish Baroness.
Idi Amin also got wiped out by a dose of syph.
And Charles Baudelaire died a less than poetic death with syphilis.
Suspected but not proven to have popped their clogs because of syphilis, we have Leo Tolstoy.
And the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche as well as politicos Vladimir Lenin along with Herr Adolf Hitler.

And I expect the list is much much longer because syhilis isn't exactly something people brag about having, is it?

Sources: https://blog.ochsner.org/articles/what-std-killed-these-historic-figures

and

wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_syphilis_cases

I remember something off the TV saying you can walk from Alaska to Russia when it's all frozen.
But the shortest distance is about 2 and half miles between Big Diomede and little Diomede.

I first asked this Q back on Boxing Day 2017 (!), since when it has flummoxed IAers to such an extent you've all been rendered speechless!  No answers at at all since 2017 so I thought "Bugger it. I'll see if I can find out myself".

And what I found out is very surprising (and more than a bit disgusting)...

This synthetic vanilla can come from ... wood pulp waste (though that's recently fallen out of favour) or coal tar, cow poop, secretions from a beaver's castor glands (located conveniently near its anus), clove oil, pine bark, or fermented bran.

Cow poop!?!  Secretions from a beaver's castor glands located conveniently near its anus!?!  Can this be true?  Are we actually eating this stuff?

Yep. We are.  That's what the respectable website called MyRecipes says at https://www.myrecipes.com/extracrispy/heres-whats-in-imitation-vanilla

It makes me wish I hadn't asked my original question!  But maybe it ain't all that bad, folks!  Because all these grotty ingredients in fake vanilla are all approved by the FDA (that's America's Food and Drug Administration) which is an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that oversees the manufacturing and distribution of food, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, tobacco and other consumer products and veterinary medicine.  So that's OK then, unless you wisely don't rate the FDA very highly.

Anyway, back on track...now for the second part of ny original question:  Why do chefs sneer at artificial vanilla?

Well, the same MyRecipes website implies (heavily) that these chefs are being unnecessarily hoity toity about artificial vanilla. MyRecipes says...

"In 2009, Cook's Illustrated conducted an intensive taste test to see if subjects could tell the difference between pure vanilla extract and imitation vanilla.
The results varied, depending on how the vanilla was deployed—in a cake, pudding, cold dessert, or solo—but the upshot was that while pure vanilla extract is ideal, there's not a huge drop-off in quality if you opt for a well-made imitation.

So there you have it.  Forget what all these poncey telly chefs say.  Artificial vanilla is fine, that is if you don't mind a gobful of coal tar, cow poop, secretions from a beaver's bum glands, pine bark, or fermented bran.

Enjoy.

Well well well.  One does own a McDonald's!   I found this article (surprisingly) on The New York Post's website when I was spending some good self-isolation time this morning tangoing round the internet...


"Fast food isn’t usually fit for a queen, but this McDonald’s outlet in Oxfordshire, United Kingdom is – because it’s owned by one.

That’s right: in addition to her vast collection of jewels and gold bullion, Queen Elizabeth II also owns her very own McDonald’s.

The restaurant is located in the Banbury Gateway Shopping Park, 60 miles west of London, and boasts a level of fanciness thoroughly befitting its royal owner, according to Business Insider.

Diners can choose between plush leather couches or sleek designer replica chairs, wirelessly charge their phones while they eat and even browse the internet on complimentary tablets while they wait for their meals to be delivered to their tables. Yep, it has table service.

Proper English breakfast

Even the menu is a cut above, featuring British classics including porridge, English Breakfast tea and bacon butties (that’s a bacon sandwich to you and me) alongside the more traditional burgers and fries.

As the British Head of State, Queen Elizabeth’s property holdings are vast – she owns everything from race courses, hotels, historic castles – even an offshore wind farm. Among the more mundane things in her portfolio are thousands of retail properties, including the Banbury shopping precinct. Her holdings are worth an estimated $20 billion and net millions of pounds in rent and profits every year which is all reinvested in the Treasury."

There's quite a bit more on https://nypost.com/2017/11/06/queen-elizabeth-owns-her-own-mcdonalds-and-its-fittingly-regal/