— The Nelson Evening Mail, Thursday, March 14 1907
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Ellis Paz has become the first man in history to be awarded a doctorate by the University of Oxford while wearing just his pants.

Matthew Perry once entered a Vanilla Ice lookalike competition and came fourth.

There is no single recognised word for ‘gay’ in Pashto.

Trypophobia is an aversion to the sight of irregular patterns or clusters of small holes or bumps.

Air India have bespoke a special plane in order to transport the sacred Parsee flame.

There are few bears in Edinburgh.

There is an emoji oversight board.

Emma Bunton “wouldn’t know where to start” in trying to come up with a vaccine for Covid-19.

BMX has been breaking ground in Nigeria.

‘Eelam’ is the Tamil name for spurge, for toddy and also for gold.

Readers of books on nature are expected to be interested in poetry in a way that readers of literary biography are not necessarily expected to be interested in willow warbler migration.

Mussolini didn’t diet.

Even an Oxford man cannot summon knowledge out of the ether.
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— The Nelson Evening Mail, December 1 1906
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Coleraine Blackjack is the cheapest porter in the world.

Thomas Nelson was a quintuple agent, serving South Africa, East Africa, West Africa, Australia, and Canada.

You gotta peculate to accumulate.

Bruce Chatwin will release no further books.

In February, the London murder rate overtook New York’s.

In Roman times there was a set price for a slave’s loincloth (new).

Hyenas are the only mammals without vaginas.

Ben Affleck does not have a back tattoo.

The River Dart flows down and down until it meets the West Dart, sending pebbles rolling.

The Cuban flag hasn’t changed since 1902.

Austrian-born philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein invented the emoji.

To use Age of Empires, you need: multimedia PC with Pentium 90 or higher processor; Microsoft Windows® 95 operating system or Windows NT® Workstation operating system version 4.0 with Service Pack 3; 16 MB of RAM for Windows 95; 24 MB RAM for Windows NT; 80 MB of available hard-disk space; 50 MB of available hard-disk for swap file; double-speed CD-ROM drive for gameplay; quad-speed CD-ROM drive for cinematics; Local Bus Super VGA video display (with 1MB VRAM); Microsoft Mouse or compatible pointing device; sound board plus speakers or headphones to hear audio; 28.8 Kbps modem for head-to-head play. 

In Colombo you can buy healthcare gift-certificates.
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