Happy Friday! If you're new to Now I Know, you'll notice that today's format differs from the rest of the week. On Fridays, I pause to write the "Weekender," my  "week in review" type of thing, or to share something else I think you may find interesting. Thanks for reading! — Dan

Hi!

Today is one of the reasons I have this Friday “weekender” edition. There are a lot of times where I have no idea how to tell a story, or I learned something fun but not really worth 500 to 1,000 words, etc.

Banana Man, Meet Mr. Grape: In 2014, a high schooler named Bryan Thompson ran on the field during his school’s football game, dressed in a banana suit. The harmless prank wasn’t appreciated by school officials, who suspended Thompson for ten days. (That’s bananas!) The length and severity of the punishment caused other students to rally in Thompson’s support, the story went viral, and the local NBC affiliate sent a reporter, Pat Collins, to interview Thompson. To underscore the ridiculousness of the story, Collins asked Thompson to wear the banana suit on camera — and Collins himself donned a grape costume, as seen here. The school, certainly embarrassed, reduced the punishment.

No Banana Suit for This Kid: On the subject of running onto the field, in 2021, a young fan somehow got onto the field at a Liverpool FC football game and went up to the player with the ball. The player handed the kid the ball — who, as seen in this video — ran around the field and then took off into the stands. Stadium workers chased him, but as seen in this video, other fans helped him off the field and then assisted in his escape. Based on what I can find, he didn’t get in any trouble, either.

Don’t Be Bigoted Against Men With Facial Hair: But there is a weird coincidence around this. The English word “bigot” means “a narrow-minded person who obstinately adheres to their own opinions and prejudices.” But the Spanish word “bigote” means “mustache,” which isn’t the same thing at all. How’d this happen? We’re not sure, because the etymologies of both words are unclear. We know that the English term is derived from French. One theory, per the Online Etymology Dictionary, is that “the typical use in Old French seems to have been as a derogatory nickname for Normans, leading to another theory (not universally accepted) that traces it to the Normans' (alleged) frequent use of the Germanic oath bi God.” A few hundred years later, the Spanish may have adopted “bigote” because German mercenaries serving Charles V had distinctive mustaches, and were still using the bi God oath.

This isn’t Eleanor Rigby; In 1966, the Beatles released the song “Eleanor Rigby,” and while songwriter Paul McCartney says that it was based on a lady he knew who lived alone, it wasn’t — intentionally, at least — named after a real Eleanor Rigby. So where’d the name come from? We have no idea, but it may have come from McCartney’s subconscious. In the 1980s, someone noticed that there’s a gravestone for an Eleanor Rigby (d. 1939) at St. Peter’s Parish Church in Liverpool — the church that McCartney’s bandmate John Lennon attended as a boy. McCartney and Lennon first met there in 1957. McCartney doesn’t recall seeing it, but … who knows.

The Very Small Olympics/AI Scandal: This just happened, so maybe I’m not giving it enough time to sit in my head. The federation that governs Olympic ice dancing has a rule in place this year, requiring dancers to use music from or inspired by the 1990s. But for some reason, AI-generated 1990s-esque music is allowed. Only one pair — Katerina Mrazkova and Daniel Mrazek from Czechia — decided to go the AI route. And the song they used was a disaster — the machines plagiarized some of the lyrics from the 1998 song “You Get What You Give” by The New Radicals. Here’s a writeup of the nonsense and a TikTok comparing their AI song with the real 1990s song. Oops.

That’s all for now! Let’s hop into the Now I Know Week in Review.

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Monday: The Man Who Killed 44 People and Broke the Lawbook: They fixed the law books.

Tuesday: The Battle Over the Floating Slum: After you read this, read the second longread below.

Wednesday: How Curling Works: Ice sweeping for gold! (Also, darts should be in the Olympics.)

Thursday: The Two-Year Waitlist to Work at a Bookstore: Every town should have one of these.

Now I Know is supported by readers like you. Yes, you! Many of my readers donate a few dollars a month to help Now I Know grow and thrive. And in exchange, they get an ad-free version!

And thanks! — Dan

Here are a few things you may want to check out over the weekend:

1) “TikTok Is Obsessed With Talking Parrots. It’s Fueling a Global Black Market” (Rolling Stone, 37 minutes, November 2025). Apologies if this is behind a paywall — I try not to link to articles that you can’t access. The subhead of this story: “A yearlong investigation into the African-grey trade reveals a web of poachers, egg smugglers, wealthy businessmen — and multitudes who want a talking bird.”

2) “Why everyone needs to stop vlogging and blogging about Makoko, Nigeria’s floating village” (Adventure, 7 minutes, October 2024). I wrote about Makoko on Tuesday, and this essay makes a great point.

3) “The Last Days of the Rainbow Warrior” (Slate, 41 minutes, July 2025). This one also has a hit-or-miss paywall — it didn’t trigger for me when I read it, but it did when I went back to it to get the URL to share here. Again, sorry if you get stuck! The subhead: “Four decades ago, a secret government team had a target—and a plan. It turned into one of the most sensationally botched crimes of the century.”

Have a great weekend, and a happy Valentine’s Day to those who care!

Dan