100 years of Pyrex, processed cheese and nudes in movies

Marking a century

Some things which celebrate their 100th birthday in 2015:

3-D films The first was shown at the Astor Theater in New York on 10 June, featuring the Niagara Falls.

Nude scenes in films Audrey Munson played an artist’s model in Inspiration, a film by George Foster Platt released by the Mutual Film Corporation on 18 November 1915. It didn’t lead to a long career. By 1920 she was selling kitchen goods door-to-door. The following year she tried to take her life and in 1931 was consigned to a psychiatric hospital where she spent the rest of her life before dying, aged 104, in 1996.

Pyrex, which was introduced in the buffet cars of American trains.

Compulsory voting It was introduced for the first time in state elections in Queensland. It resulted in a win for Labor. Processed cheese, which was invented by J.L. Kraft Bros in Illinois in order to increase shelf life.

Ups and downs

Three things which went up in 2014:

— House prices, up 9 per cent according to the Nationwide.

— GDP, up 3 per cent according to the ONS (3rd quarter to 3rd quarter).

— UK population, up 400,600 or 0.63 per cent (ONS).

Three things which went down in 2014:

— Oil price Brent Crude was $111 a barrel on 31 December 2013, $77.75 by the end of November 2014.

— Sterling Started the year at $1.65. Was $1.57 by the end of November.

— Inflation CPI was 2.0 per cent in December 2013, 1.3 per cent by November.

Maybe next year

Some predictions for 2014 which failed to materialise (at least by the time of going to press):

— ‘New protruding land masses or islands will start to form around Hawaii, Southeast Asia, and the Bahamas over the next year, sparking renewed interest in the legend of Atlantis’ (LaMont Hamilton, ‘Reiki Master, healing practitioner and leading psychic’).