— The Nelson Evening Mail, October 10 1906

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The Museum of Emotions in London has a game with yes/no answers.

Adolf Hitler fixed the Nazi Party registrations, to make it seem they had more members than they did.

The endnotes to David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest comprise their own entire audiobook.

Vandals put lives at risk.

The ‘Blue Danube’ waltz is played on a radio station somewhere in the world every minute of the day and night.

The English county of Midsomer has the highest murder rate of any non-metropolitan area in the UK.

Barns are typically painted red because of nuclear fusion.

In France a few yards of silk can make a nobleman.

The Cutty Sark was still in service in 1953.

‘Orientation’ comes from the fact that the earliest Western maps placed the East at the top, putting Paradise in pole position.

Public procurement expenditure accounts for nearly 50% of the Afghan budget.

The weather in Northern Ireland is always fine.

Girls have a higher chance of getting pregnant than boys.

— The Nelson Evening Mail, January 6 1909

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James Ramsay MacDonald became Prime Minister of Great Britain three times.

Water is a better conductor of sound than air.

A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be.

Maurice Ravel was responsible for the creation of Led Zeppelin.

Being a policeman ranks below farming, fishing, and being a binman in the UK’s list of most dangerous jobs.

The first actor to play Tinky Winky in Teletubbies was sacked for incorrectly interpreting the role.

Socrates outlawed the sale of black liquorice in a just society.

To be ‘hairy heeled’, meaning ill bred, comes from bloodstock breeding. A racehorse should not have too much hair about the fetlocks.

The Swiss Army has accidentally invaded Liechtenstein three times.

If you hear there’s a unicorn in a wood, don’t go there with a virgin.

American novelist Paul Auster has two books on his nightstand. He has finished both of them.

84% of people think that political correctness has gone mad.

Not all contemporary poets are from the North.

— The Nelson Evening Mail, March 21 1907

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When you register your child at birth, it immediately becomes the legal property of the state.

In WW2 German physicists were able to discern the weather conditions in London from the tolling of Big Ben broadcast on the BBC.

Male kangaroos flex their biceps to impress their females.

Sir Nicholas Gimcrack died from a fever brought on by chasing a butterfly.

A man in Thailand believes a 10-foot cobra is the reincarnation of his deceased girlfriend. They go to the gym together.

Former England rugby hooker Brian Moore is a qualified nail manicurist.

In February 1643, Dutch colonists massacred members of the Lenape tribe at Bowling Green.

When Samuel Beckett’s eyesight faded he played his favourite golf courses from memory.

They have the Queen’s English in Inverness.

Award-winning children’s author Anthony McGowan once lost two children while drunk in charge of a creche.

‘post-truth’ is now included in the Oxford English Dictionary.

Every one percent unemployment goes up, 40,000 people die.

All people who like musical theatre are divs.