— The Nelson Evening Mail, July 4 1908
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The Chinese Christian warlord Feng Yu-xiang (1882–1948) baptised his troops en masse, using a firehose.

Vincent Kompany has suffered more than 40 injuries.

Time passes very slowly when you’re in a hippo’s mouth.

Poetry must be entered into by a personal encounter, or it must be left alone.

Johnny Cash was in Colombo once.

The children’s insult ‘Nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah’ is sung to the tune of ‘Bye, baby Bunting’. It features a descending minor third.

In Milan, there is an interactive neon tennis court inside a church.

The German language has not changed hugely since 1669.

Men’s hair takes on a lot.

A lot of well-respected Japanese writers seem to take their own lives.

You can see the name ‘Cadbury’ on every piece of chocolate.

Queen Victoria knew her Onions.

There are many different sorts of Irishman.
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— The Nelson Evening Mail, August 2 1906

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In 1943 a British pilot made an emergency landing on the Italian island of Lampedusa, only to have it surrender to him.

Kelo trees live for up to 3,500 years, and remain standing for another 700.

A ‘BLT’ is a sandwich containing bacon, lettuce and tomato.

Spinal Tap were originally called Lamé, but this soon changed after the named repeatedly appeared on posters without the accent.

24 sitting Labour MPs have died since the year 2000.

After Michael Jackson’s death ’emaciated’ was the most searched word on the Merriam-Webster dictionary homepage.

Gaius Plinius Secundus was the ‘Elder’ of the two famous Plinys.

The little black bits in kiwi fruit are spider cack.

José Mauricio Nunes Garcia’s Missa Dos Defuntos is a very obvious rip-off of Mozart’s Requiem.

Arthur C Clarke owned a Sinclair C6 electric vehicle.

The Fountain Café in Walliston, Surrey, dispenses the nastiest coffee south of Manchester.

Many C.19^th paintings are believed to have used pigment derived from pulverised Egyptian mummies.

You don’t need a sense of humour in paradise.