Thursday, October 27, 2005

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.

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

FACT #191

Arctic Monkeys' 'I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor' only reached number 52 in 1979 when originally recorded by Jonathan King.

FACT #190

During 2006, California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Hartlepool mayor Stuart Drummond will take part in a year-long 'job swap'.

FACT #189

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.

FACT #188

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'.

FACT #187

Perfaphobia is the fear of being impaled by a spear of frozen urine discarded from an overhead Boeing 747.

FACT #186

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.

FACT #185

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.

Saturday, October 15, 2005

FACT #184

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.

FACT #183

The Berlin Wall was originally 5 feet tall with the only crossing point a heavily monitored stile.

FACT #182

If you dip a sleeping man's finger in Baileys he will spontaneously combust.

FACT #181

95 percent of all banknotes found in London contain traces of twiglets.

FACT #180

John Wayne was only 4'6" tall. He had to stand on a vase throughout the filming of Rio Grande.

FACT #179

Prior to enjoying success as McFly, the guitar trio ploughed the gig circuit for a decade under the name The Butskellite Consensus.

Friday, October 14, 2005

FACT #178

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.

FACT #177

Joan Collins has demanded that, at her funeral, a Leonard Rossiter lookalike pours Cinzano into her open coffin.

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

FACT #176

The Kellogg's Honey Nut Loop bee now co-owns a care home for retired advertising mascots in Somerset.

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

FACT #175

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.

FACT #174

Even the remotest Polynesian tribesmen have heard Steve Lamacq tell the story of how he saw Richie Edwards cut himself.

FACT #173

Mr T.V. Ape of Colchester is suing Education Secretary Ruth Kelly for his continued use as an acronym in the teaching of French.

Saturday, October 08, 2005

FACT #172

Broxbourne Council in Hertfordshire is still controlled by a Whig-Liberal coalition.

FACT #171

Stapeley Water Gardens in Cheshire will host the 2014 World Cup after its Britain in Bloom application was mistakenly delivered to FIFA.

FACT #170

David Blunkett's relationship with Kimberly Quinn collapsed when she caught him cheating at Pin the Tail on the Donkey.

Wednesday, October 05, 2005

FACT #169

In North Korea it is illegal to decline a verb.

FACT #168

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.

FACT #167

Martika's Kitchen can still be purchased in larger branches of MFI.

FACT #166

Most outsize charity cheques presented in local newspaper photographs cost banks more than their face value to produce.

FACT #165

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".

FACT #164

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.

Tuesday, October 04, 2005

FACT #163

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.

Monday, October 03, 2005

FACT #162

Unicycles require half the effort of bicycles.