English science!

What Science Experiments & Amusements for Children: 73 Easy Experiments (no special equipment needed) by Charles Vivian, published in 1967, has taught me about England:

• England is perpetually cold. Every photograph in Science Experiments shows an English child in a sweater, most often a sweater layered on top of two or three other long-sleeved shirts. Take also as evidence “The Candle at the Door” experiment, which takes for granted that one’s environment will be naturally cold. The description of the experiment includes such phrases as, “When a room is being heated,” “Meanwhile, cold air is being drawn into the room,” “Allow a room to get thoroughly warm,” “The movement of the candle (plus the cold draft you will feel) will indicate that there is current of cold air flowing into the room.” Nowhere in the text is mention made that this particular experiment is seasonal, so one can only logically conclude that it is cold in England right now, no matter when "now" is. 
• English children style their hair to look like Wolverine from the X-Men. Unfortunately, I can offer as evidence only the photographs, so you should try to find your own copy of this book.

And that’s actually all I learned about England. I guess I should borrow that travel guide to the British Isles from the school library. I think it’s on the shelf next to the cake-decorating book.

How Science Experiments & Amusements for Children: 73 Easy Experiments (no special equipment needed) by Charles Vivian, published in 1967, has enlightened me as to the differing definitions of “special equipment.” Not that I am faulting this book in any way, because it was neither intended for a Gambian audience, nor was I around in 1967 to know what sorts of equipment were readily available to English children that year. Regardless, here’s a list of non-special-equipment required by the experiments that I imagine the typical Gambian would be hard-pressed to find:

• ruler
• steel wool
• a small pane of glass
• silk handkerchief
• glycerin
• plasticine
• gimlet (I actually have no idea what a gimlet is, so maybe I’m at this moment unknowingly surrounded by gimlets)
• scissors
• soup plate
• a balloon
• food jar and cap
• two forks
• empty milk bottle
• radish
• old phonograph record
• piece of fur or flannel
• cellophane tape
• gummed cellophane tape
• broomstick
• empty screw-cap medicine or ketchup bottle
• celluloid or sheet plastic
• fine wire (that I at first read as “fine wine,” equally unavailable)
• drinking straw
• rubber band
• grease-proof paper or tracing paper
• paper clip
• rubbing alcohol
• salad oil
• copper sulphate
• boric acid
• a cold floor