Boring at a dinner party? Try this!

Apart from handbags, shoes, place mats and coffee china I also collect interesting information and unusual words. Not only do I find it enriching and entertaining for my own wellbeing, having a collection of unusual information could be a life savior at a dinner party when I struggle to keep the conversation going with my neighbors at the table.

An example of a pleasant dinner topic is the story behind ”Irish coffee”: The original Irish coffee was invented and named by Joe Sheridan, an Irish head chef. The coffee was conceived after a group of American passengers disembarked in the west of Ireland from a Pan Am flying boat on a miserable winter evening in the 1940's. Sheridan added whiskey to the coffee to warm the passengers. After the passengers asked if they were being served Brazilian coffee, Sheridan told them it was "Irish coffee". This little story turned out to be quite the ice breaker at a dinner party once when I was place next to a man I found to be dreadfully boring. Luckily, he also had a number of interesting things to share and the evening was more pleasant than I had initially anticipated. I sat close to him at another party half a year later and apparently he had already shared all his good stories last time we met. Enough said.

 Perhaps you like to show what a cunning linguist you are? Here are two words many people might not know: aglet and blype. Aglet is the little piece of plastic on the end of a shoe lace and blype is the name of the skin that peels of after a sunburn.

If you prefer silly and crazy facts about animals you might appreciate having the knowledge that turtles can breath through their butts, dolphins sleep with one eye open and if a tuna stops swimming it will suffocate.

I have more and even better cards up my sleeve but those I will keep to myself. You never know if you and I end up together at a dinner party and conversation is going a bit slow. Then you’ll be thankful I have saved the best for last.

"Have you heard this one? Three men came in to a bar..." Crown princess Victoria of Sweden knows how to keep the conversation going.