FACT #192
Fancy dress parties are named after Francis Dress, who held the first
in 1896. Francis, a closet homosexual, was known to his male paramours as Fancy.
Fancy dress parties are named after Francis Dress, who held the first
Arctic Monkeys' 'I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor' only reached number 52 in 1979 when originally recorded by Jonathan King.
During 2006, California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Hartlepool mayor Stuart Drummond will take part in a year-long 'job swap'.
The Sunday Times only realised the Hitler Diaries were a forgery after an eagle-eyed reader spotted a reference to the Fuehrer 'bodypopping' in his Berchtesgarden hideaway.
James Howard Harris, the 3rd Earl of Malmesbury, lost the battle for the Conservative leadership in 1854 after repeatedly refusing to answer whether he had 'ever partaken o'er the snuff'.
Perfaphobia is the fear of being impaled by a spear of frozen urine discarded from an overhead Boeing 747.
The most popular board game in the Ukraine is Autopsy! in which 2-6 players must travel round a morgue-shaped board picking up evidence and body parts until the winner can determine the cause of death.
A film adaptation of the classic Spectrum game Horace Goes Skiing is currently in pre-production. Jake Gyllenhaal is in talks to play Horace, a young Idaho farmhand who fights against prejudice and grinding poverty to reach the pistes of Val d'Isere.
In Goscinny and Uderzo's rarest work, Asterix and the Child Catcher, the indomitable gaul is ordered by Caesar to launch operation Menhir and save a small boy from the evil Paedophilix.
The Berlin Wall was originally 5 feet tall with the only crossing point a heavily monitored stile.
John Wayne was only 4'6" tall. He had to stand on a vase throughout the filming of Rio Grande.
Prior to enjoying success as McFly, the guitar trio ploughed the gig circuit for a decade under the name The Butskellite Consensus.
In the first draft of Louis de Bernieres' famous book, Captain Corelli's mandolin was actually a ukelele acquired as war plunder during the Italian invasion of Macedonia.
Joan Collins has demanded that, at her funeral, a Leonard Rossiter lookalike pours Cinzano into her open coffin.
The Kellogg's Honey Nut Loop bee now co-owns a care home for retired advertising mascots in Somerset.
If the ink was squeezed out of every squid in the world's oceans there would still only be enough to fill 37 Bic biros.
Even the remotest Polynesian tribesmen have heard Steve Lamacq tell the story of how he saw Richie Edwards cut himself.
Mr T.V. Ape of Colchester is suing Education Secretary Ruth Kelly for his continued use as an acronym in the teaching of French.
Stapeley Water Gardens in Cheshire will host the 2014 World Cup after its Britain in Bloom application was mistakenly delivered to FIFA.
David Blunkett's relationship with Kimberly Quinn collapsed when she caught him cheating at Pin the Tail on the Donkey.
Research conducted at Lancaster University has proved that toddlers who regularly watch June Sarpong on TV take, on average, an extra five years to learn to read.
Most outsize charity cheques presented in local newspaper photographs cost banks more than their face value to produce.
In 2003 the state of Arkansas outlawed sleep. The member of the state senate who introduced the bill, Bob Johnson, admitted only doing it because he was "bored".
In 1997 the Devon Tourist Board launched the bar snack Torbay Mix, a combination of salt, maize, chickpeas and trout. 15,000 packets remain unsold.
Gladiator was filmed on an industrial estate in Bracknell. A lorry bearing the liverage of Wincanton Logistics can briefly be seen over Russell Crowe's shoulder.