Absinth minded!

Towards the end of his life, Vincent van Gogh used a large amount of yellow in his paintings. A common misconception was that he was colour blind, but the truth is that he was born with epilepsy treated it with an herb called digitalis his entire life. His constant use of digitalis combined with his love of absinth saw him decline into madness, and eventually he perceived the world around him to be a collage of yellow hues and dots.

Smurfing About

Juzcar, a small town near Malaga in Southern Spain, became the world’s first real-life Smurf village – transforming from brilliant white to beautifully blue. It took a dozen painters and more than 4 000 liters of paint, a savvy promotion by Sony of their Smurf 3D movie. Sony promised the town that they would return it to its former glory, but some locals have requested that the village remain Smurf blue. True story.

Seeing… crimson!

Men can’t see variations of red. The gene that allows humans to see red sits directly on the X chromosome, and while both men and women possess the X chromosome, women have two and men only one. Therefore women can more effectively perceive the red-orange spectrum.


Top Rainbow Tunes
We had a poll on Facebook and here are the top spectrum songs:

1) Red, Red Wine —UB40
2) Orange Crush — REM
3) Yellow Submarine  – The Beatles
4) Green Door — Shakin’ Stevens
5) Blue Moon —
6) Indigo Girl — Watershed
7) Violet Hill — Coldplay

Have you got that in Arsenic?
Five colours you’ve never heard of:

Caput mortuum: In Latin, the words mean “worthless remains”. The colour is a variety of purples and browns created when rust is oxidised.

Xanadu: A colour that comes from a plant known as the philodendron. The leaves are generally a green colour with a tint of grey and originally found in the city of Xanadu, near inner Mongolia in China.

United Nations Blue: That’s right, the international organisation provided to help countries with human rights, has its own colour. It is a light, slightly pastel blue.

Feldgrau: Also known as “field grey”, feldgrau was the colour of German uniforms worn from 1907 until late 1945 and is a distinct grey-green.

Arsenic: This colour is based on the periodic element arsenic, which is dark grey-blue in colour. Arsenic is a metalloid that is often naturally found.

A Question of Colour
Black: When we are born we are black. When we grow up we are black. When we are sick we are black. When we go in the sun we are black. When we are cold we are black. When we die we are black.

White: When you are born you are pink. When you grow up you are white. When you are sick you turn green. When you go in the sun you go red. When you are cold you turn blue. When you die you turn purple.

So who’re you calling coloured?