Things you always wanted to know the answer to [Vol. 5]

If the Egyptians can make pyramids that have lasted centuries/thousands of years, why are they all that's left? Surely they went on to build much big/better things?

Nope they went on to make worse things. The pyramids the egyptians made were far inferior to the ones they found from a much earlier time

Yeah - that's what happened. The primary skill back then was the extraction and forming of rocks into blocks for building, rather than the art of building (if you wanted to build something really, really big, a pyramid was your only option). So whilst other building were built, being smaller, they got ransacked for the materials to build other things else where. The Pyramids survived by virtue of their sheer scale but even then, the marble and lime render that was originally applied all got nicked for other things.

They have survived. Cairo's something like 1500 years old but plenty of other cities that are several thousand years old. But as you say they get built over so have evolved and modernised over the years.

They've also built other impressive things since the pyramids, like the Aswan Dam and the Suez Canal

Do you know why the pyramids are in Egypt?

Because they wouldn't fit in The British Museum.

Is it tiktokkers filming on a phone's front camera which reverses the picture?

On one episode of QI a question was "What country has the most number of pyramids" and a klaxon answer was obviously "Egypt"

The Yamaha FS1-E (five speed with 1 eliminated) had a left foot operated gear shift with neutral at the top and it was press down for 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th, the only problem was that it was easy to cog up too many gears when aiming for 1st and ending up in neutral when you needed traction and balance in slow speed traffic. The conventional 5 or 6 speed motorbike gearbox is down for 1st and up through neutral to 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th and if you accidentally cogged down too many gears you ended up in 1st which is more preferable to landing in neutral and not having any traction to get in or out of trouble

Reminded me of the gaffe by Prince Philip.

If you're near there, no wonder you are deaf. Said to a group of deaf children standing next to a Jamaican steel drum band

Deaf and lucky.