Tales of the inconsequential

My cache of conversational titbits has been considerably boosted by the most recent challenge that I threw down to Spectator readers. I asked for an extract from either a gripping thriller or a bodice-ripping romance containing half a dozen pieces of inconsequential information, and I now know that Zanzibar is the world’s largest clove producer, and that 99 per cent of Estonians have blue eyes. Thanks, for those morsels of trivia, to J. Seery and Nicholas Hodgson, both of whom submitted fine entries. Patrick Tyson-Cain, Sergio Michael Petro, Albert Black, Walter Ancarrow and Charles Curran also narrowly missed the cut. Basil Ransome-Davies, who is on stellar form at the moment, takes £30; the rest nab £25.

I was wearing out shoe-leather tracking Torpedo McCann across the city, learning why most American males prefer rubber soles. LA had expanded since it was bought by the US from Mexico in 1848 and I was building a thirst myself when he entered a saloon next to a tattoo parlour.