Uncanny connections with number 11

[Guest blackknight]

Friday, Nov 11, 2011

DID you know that World War I reportedly ended on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918? Also, the first American lunar landing was made by Apollo 11; while ill-fated space shuttle Columbia (which exploded during re-entry in 2003, killing all seven astronauts aboard) apparently went up on its 11th mission in 1991 weighing 11 tonnes, and fixed an errant satellite on the 11th day of the 11th month.

When it comes to popular culture, just search for "11" on the Internet Movie Database (imdb.com), and you'll get four exact matches for films called Eleven (as well as one video game), and over 90 other titles with the word or number in it. The most recognisable of these titles is, of course, Ocean's Eleven, which crops up twice - the first being the 1960 Rat Pack-starring original film and the more recent and better-known, star-studded 2001 remake starring George Clooney as Danny Ocean.

Also, while you may have heard of the acclaimed 1954 film Seven Samurai by Akira Kurosawa, what you may not know is there was also a movie called Eleven Samurai (Ju-ichinin no Samurai) released in 1966, which was the final film in Japanese filmmaker Eiichi Kudo's so-called Samurai Revolution trilogy (the previous two being Thirteen Assassins and The Great Duel).

Another well-known title, especially to fans of documentaries, is The Fog Of War: Eleven Lessons From The Life Of Robert S. Mcnamara, the film featuring the former US Secretary of Defense that won Errol Morris an Oscar for best feature documentary in 2004.

Speaking of the Oscars, the highest number of awards a film has ever won is 11; a feat achieved by three films - Ben-Hur (1959), Titanic (1997), and The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King (2003).

Ah yes, The Lord Of The Rings. In the beginning of J.R.R. Tolkien's classic fantasy epic (and Peter Jackson's film trilogy, of course) Bilbo Baggins celebrates his "eleventy-first" birthday; and the Hobbits (as well as Winnie-The-Pooh, and apparently real-life Britons, Australians and New Zealanders) are also quite fond of having "elevenses", which is a meal eaten between second breakfast and luncheon, which, of course, is around 11 o'clock.

While we are still on the subject of films, in the classic rock mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap (which parodies the lives of heavy metal band members), the eponymous band has amplifiers that go up to 11, which apparently is "one louder" than most amps, which only go up to 10. The phrase "turn it up to 11" has since entered pop culture canon, meaning to turn the sound up as loud as possible.

Speaking of rock music, The Grateful Dead had a song called The Eleven that was first released on their acclaimed live album Live/Dead. Both Primus and Taking Back Sunday also recorded songs entitled Eleven; in fact, there have also been quite a number of albums imaginatively entitled Eleven or 11 over the years, notably by Bryan Adams, The Smithereens, Harry Connick Jr, Martina McBride, and Sugarcult. No, American band Finger Eleven doesn't have an album with the number 11 anywhere on it, and with six albums released so far, they have a long way to go before they reach album number 11 anyway (assuming they last that long).

Over to TV now, and although there are hardly any TV shows that have the number 11 in their titles, we did find out some interesting trivia, though. For instance, did you know that Cheers and M*A*S*H both ran for 11 seasons, with 11 main characters? Also, there have been 11 incarnations of The Doctor in cult BBC sci-fi series Doctor Who so far (the latest Doctor is played by Matt Smith).

In the world of sports, the number 11 is a recurring one, not least of all because sports like football, cricket, field hockey and American football are all played with teams of 11 people on the field. Rugby may not have teams of 11, but the length of a rugby ball is 11 inches.

In the card game blackjack, an Ace can be counted as either one point or 11 points, depending on which one the player wants (or needs).

In the traditional badminton scoring system (which was dropped in 2002), a women's singles set only lasted up to 11 points, presumably because the female players could not last the 15-point set that the male singles players played (which, of course, was rubbish). Oh, and American tennis player Venus Williams also has a clothing range called EleVen.

One of the most popular fast food franchises in Malaysia is KFC. The franchise formerly known as Kentucky Fried Chicken used to pride itself on making its original recipe fried chicken with "11 secret herbs and spices" (though it's safe to assume that tom yam was not one of them). Another franchise Malaysians would be familiar with that features this number is, of course, 7-Eleven, the chain of 24-hour convenience stores; it is also, we discovered, the franchise with the most number of retail stores in the world.

Phew! That's a lot of 11s to digest. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to 7-11 to buy some elevenses. Here's looking forward to 12, eh?

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[Guest Wes23]

Anyone here is one of the 500 plus couple that got married today? Gong xi gong xi first!!!