Listing to Port

1. When you dive into the core of a nuclear reactor because it seemed like a good idea at the time and emerge as the newly undead champion of people who do really stupid shit for no discernable reason.
2. When you accidentally steal a megalorry full of plastic skeletons instead of that other megalorry full of fine art that you were planning on stealing and whilst you are hanging out with the skeletons in hiding you end up making them into a giant automated plastic bonespider and using it to navigate the sewers where it scares off various of the city’s supervillians, leading to your coronation in the local media as some kind of mystery urban bonespider benefactor.  
3. When you travel so far into the depths of the internet that you emerge out the other side, blinking and slightly shit-smeared, into a shining land of future mysteries where you are transformed into pure and delicate data, routed seven times around the world, and remade into a superhuman with near-unimaginable powers apart from when the wifi is down.
4. When you have so many cats that eventually they forget that you are not a cat and initiate you into the secret midnight rituals of cats which involve fusing together into a giant furry catsuit twelve metres tall and rampaging about the city kicking bins over and you vow to use that knowledge to fight refuse-related misdeeds in your neighborhood like putting the wrong stuff in the recycling and so on.
5. When the dark speaks to you and you speak back to the dark and eventually you get to know it and it’s actually kind of nice and sometimes it will let you ride on its back through the glowing cities of the world and you can ask it to stop so you can hop off and right any injustices that you happen to see in passing and sometimes the dark will even punch people for you, it’s not fussy about that kind of thing.
6. When there is a dramatic global decline in imagination due to some kind of carbohydrate-borne virus making it quite easy to become more powerful than any given person can possibly imagine, so superheroes are ten a penny and they all have origin stories where they tripped over a doorstep and became more powerful than you could possibly imagine, or sneezed unusually hard and became more powerful than you could possibly imagine, or suchlike.

1. The shopping trolley. The shopping trolley was one of the first inventions to spring from the fertile mind of Mr. Benjamin Trolley, a little-known farmhand in rural Australia. Interestingly, the first designs for the shopping trolley were not intended to hold groceries at all; rather, they began as a device for trapping and transporting wombats. This is why modern-day trolleys often still feature what is known as a ‘wombat flap’ - a hinged opening at the back through which animals can enter. A visiting American entrepreneur, Mr. Gregory Cart, recognised the potential in Trolley’s designs and stole a set of early blueprints, bringing what he termed the 'Shopping Cart’ to the market in the United States in 1905. Although Mr. Trolley won a subsequent lawsuit to be recognised as the original inventor, the damage was done. To this day, his invention is referred to by the name of his rival across much of the world.
2. The badge. The history of the badge is tied up with that of the 1835 Cruelty to Animals Act in the UK. During the run-up to this Act, there was some debate both in parliament and amongst the general public as to whether badger-baiting should be included in the list of prohibited acts. A popular movement in support of the badger arose, based around the London area of Holborn. Participants frequently greeted each other with the 'Holborn Snort’, a sound intended to mimic the call of an angry badger, and wore makeshift brooches depicting the black and white insignia of their alliance. Over time, these became known as 'badges’. Following the passing of the Act (successfully including a ban on badger-baiting), the badge was co-opted by other popular movements, eventually achieving its present ubiquity.
3. The sock. Interestingly, the sock was commonly known as the foot-glove until at least 1885. Thus one finds, for example, Shakespeare’s famous quote from Romeo and Juliet, 'O, that I were a glove upon that foot.’ (perhaps one of the earliest occurrences of foot fetishism in English Literature?) The sock owes its change of name to a quartet in the original version of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Princess Ida, in which a group of frightened maidens prepare for battle by competing to remove each other’s socks, eventually culminating in an energetic punch-up, or 'sock-em-up’ in the terminology of the time. The brief, wild popularity of this scene led to the adoption of the word 'sock’ for the foot-glove among London thespians, and subsequently the wider population. The scene itself was presented to Queen Victoria in 1895, who let it be known that she disapproved. It was subsequently cut from later versions of the operetta.
4. The doormat. Doormats were seldom seen in common use until 1770; before this time, people just tracked mud everywhere (a detail often omitted in historical dramas). The original idea for the doormat is believed to have come from one John Frederickson, an English inventor in the service of the King of France at Versailles in 1763. At this time, the fashion for highly-polished mirrored or gold-plated doors was beginning to wane in favour of a more subtle look. Frederickson invented what he termed his 'door-mattifying device’, a scratchy mat which could be rubbed over a polished surface to reduce its shine. The door-mattifying devices, once left beside their respective doors, soon acquired the secondary use we know today. Interestingly, the proper term for a doormat in French is still le chose pour porte-frottement.
5. The mug. Most people believe that the origins of the mug must lie far back in history. Interestingly, this is not the case. The mug as we know it was invented in 1835 by American philanthropist Theodora Mug, as part of her drive to improve global hydration levels. Its rapid adoption the world over is testament to the classic simplicity of the design. Before this date, drinking vessels were commonly known as flagons and were typically of larger size and more complicated construction. Indeed, in the 17th century it was common for women to drink only from their cupped hands, due to the extreme weight of the flagons of the day, which were used as status symbols.