Jaspistos

Useless info

In Competition No. 2374 you were invited to supply ten pieces of useless information to clutter our minds.

For those with an appetite for loony facts Noel Botham’s The World’s Greatest Book of Useless Information (John Blake) can be prescribed in small doses. Your efforts amused me vastly, but presented me with a judging problem. Some items were funnier than others, so should I award prize money by item, or plump for those whose ten contained the most gold? I chose the latter, and easier, course. The winners, printed below, get £25 each, and the last bonus prize of Cobra Premium beer (for our spell of sponsorship is over) goes to Michael Swan. If anyone has still not received their Cobra prize, please write to Claire Eaves at The Spectator.

In 1703 a shower of sea-urchins fell on Banbury.
The potto can distinguish 423 colours.
There is an Inuit word meaning ‘My house has not been destroyed by termites’.
The Pitlochry bannock-skirling game has ended in a draw for 809 consecutive years.
In Sumatra a pig may only be driven along a public highway if it has front and rear lights.
The word ‘equinox’ means ‘horse nut’: conker tournaments were traditionally held on 21 September.
Unmarried Kashgar women may not speak between sunrise and sunset on Thursdays.
A traffic jam stretching from Seattle to Sacramento lasted for 46 days.
Mongolian typewriters have 739 keys.
Vermeer’s eight surviving pornographic paintings are kept in a locked room at the Mauritshuis.
Michael Swan









Al Jolson’s brother became a bookseller in Taunton.
Australians celebrate Fortitude Day every 13 January.
Ferrets were introduced into England by William the Conquerer.
The word ‘pimp’ derives from a mistranslation of the Hebrew word for ‘sandal’.
It is still technically illegal to darn hosiery on a Sunday.
Thirteen per cent of Latvian women believe that Princess Diana is alive and in hiding.
Perro





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