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For the Sri Lankan Sunday Times

— The Nelson Evening Mail, June 22 1912

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Soldiers are quite fond of children.

Chopsticks are the reason the Chinese never invented custard.

The senior members of the House of Commons are not fit to govern.

The editor of the Erotic Review was educated in a school for the daughters of missionaries.

Karl Marx wrote his PhD on Epicurus.

Belgium’s famous Manneken Pis statue has over 900 changes of clothing.

If you draw a line with chalk around a chicken it will be immobilised.

The King of the Fleas lives in Tiberias.

Swazi actor Richard E Grant did not drink milk til 1985.

‘Mayday!’ comes from the French, ‘m’aidez!’

You can find Just For Men® things in the Men’s aisle.

Elton Jantjies is the first South African rugby player to score 15 points or more in 5 successive matches.

Penge East is a surprisingly popular train station.

— The Nelson Evening Mail, June 22 1912

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In English maritime law a ship is not ‘wrecked’ if the cat survives.

Ezra Pound heard many performances of the Bellringers’ Guild.

Kale is a winter vegetable.

Napoleon’s troops shot the nose off the Egyptian sphinx for target practice.

If you put a chameleon on tartan it will explode.

You are twice as likely to crash while texting than drink-driving. (So if you need to send an urgent text, put an inebriated friend behind the wheel, instead.)

1% of marmalade sales are to people under 28.

Beauty and the Beast isn’t the first Disney movie for LGBT audiences.

The Welsh character is an interesting study.

John Travolta is 63 years old.

Turtles find it very difficult to look happy.

You never know with clowns.

Canadian passports have images of ice hockey in them.

— The Nelson Evening Mail, July 4 1908

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Eight wickets for eight runs is the worst batting collapse in Twenty20 international cricket.

St Blaise is the patron saint of sore throats, and of knitting.

Estonian literature suffers from a dearth of stories by trucks drivers and/or prostitutes.

The presidential statues on Mount Rushmore were originally intended to extend down to the waist.

The Athenian philosopher Chrysippus died from laughing at his own jokes.

Richard Nixon once wrote a memo instructing his Secret Service detail to make sure no press took pictures of him with a drink in hand.

Tramps have heels like turnips.

Samuel Derrick, pimp, failed actor and master of the ceremonies at Bath, wrote a novel in the voice of Shakespeare’s ghost.

People now take in five times more information every day than they did thirty years ago.

Geoffrey Chaucer addressed his 1391 A Treatise on the Astrolabe to his ten-year-old son, Lewis.

The Japanese toilet industry has agreed to standardise complex bidet controls.

Calling somebody a pussy is not illegal.