Authors: Jack Crossley
Barmy Britain (18 page)
The World Series of Poker rolled into London town in September 2007 and one of the top guns let it be known that he can cut a carrot in half by flicking a playing card at it.
The Times
A whole lotta faking going on. There are 80,000 Elvis Presley impersonators worldwide. When the BBC began a search for the best, Broadcasting House was seething with Elvises: tall, short, macho, weedy, adolescent, and ‘old enough to know better’.
Daily Mail Weekend
magazine
At a time when Captain Alexander Stewart was fighting in the World War I trenches, officialdom wanted to know how many pairs of socks his company had. When he replied that there were 141 and a half there was an immediate memo demanding to know at once, ‘How you come to be deficient of one sock?’ He replied: ‘Man lost his leg.’
Guardian
The
Penny Pincher’s Book
, by John and Irma Mustoe, is described in the Daily Mail as ‘a cult guide for 21st century misers’. Among its recommendations:
- Turn old rubber gloves into elastic bands
- Keep candles in the fridge to make them burn slower
- Use a pepper shaker for olive oil – it releases less than pouring from a bottle
- Chew beeswax instead of expensive nicotine gums
- Buy anti-freeze in the summer when it is cheaper
- Never go to a supermarket on an empty stomach because hungry shoppers are more likely to snap up expensive sweets and snacks
- Re-use junk mail envelopes by turning them inside out then glue the edges
- Wash your hands in cold water
- Cut Brillo pads, nylon scourers, dusters and sponges in half
Daily Mail
The Ig Nobel awards for ludicrous investigations are produced by a science humour magazine called
Annals of Improbable Research
. In 2007 the language prize went to Barcelona University for proving that rats cannot tell the difference between Japanese being spoken backwards and Dutch being spoken backwards. The biology prize went to a Brit, Brian Whitcomb, who established that amateur sword-swallowers are subject to sore throats.
Independent
Barcelona was also the scene of an ‘inspiring act of endurance, courage and accomplishment’ when Britain’s Wayne Iles blew through a straw and sent a Malteser a world-record distance of 11ft 0.2inches.
Independent on Sunday
(from the
Guinness Book of Records
)
Noël Coward took a taxi from the Savoy to the Dorchester and his driver grumbled about picking up a fare for such a short trip. Noël paid the five shillings fare and gave a
£
20 tip saying: ‘If you had been more polite you would have received my usual tip’.
The Times
Chris Harding, of Parkstone, Dorset, was advised that the best way to tip a ship’s steward was to give him a bank note torn in half. If he got satisfaction the steward got the other half at the end of the journey.
The Times
Millionaire Nubar Gulbenkian reputedly put a ten shilling note on the table when sitting down to dine in a restaurant, telling the waiter: ‘Yours if I’m satisfied, mine if I’m not.’
David Sinclair, Isington, Hampshire.
The Times
Following the Gulbenkian tipping story, Mike Mitchell, of Hove, Sussex, wrote: I think it was the same gentleman who scorned luxury limousines and chose a traditional London taxi, boasting that ‘It can turn on a sixpence – whatever that is’.
The Times
In January 1992 a container was washed off a cargo ship – releasing thousands of plastic toy ducks into the Pacific Ocean. In June 2007 The Times reported: ‘A flotilla of plastic ducks is heading for British beaches… after journeying nearly 17,000 miles.’ Two children’s books have been written about the saga and the ducks have become collector’s items, changing hands for £500.
The Times
Alan Jenkins, of Port Talbot, Glamorgan, had a tattoo of his girlfriend’s face on his back, but, after 15 years, they split up. Philosophically, Alan said ‘I’ve got some room on my chest if I get hooked up again.’
Sunday Times / Daily Mirror
At the last count, 12,682 designs for toothbrushes had been lodged at the patents office.
Daily Telegraph
A survey of wit by the digital TV channel Dave produced these examples:
- ‘I have nothing to declare except my genius’ (Oscar Wilde)
- ‘Clement Attlee is a modest man who has much to be modest about’ (Winston Churchill)
- ‘Maids want nothing but husbands, and when they have them, they want everything’ (William Shakespeare)
- ‘I wouldn’t say I was the best manager in the business. But I was in the top one’ (Brian Clough)
57% of those surveyed thought that men are wittier then women – and there were no female entries in the top ten.
Daily Mail
When NASA started sending astronauts into space they realised that ball point pens would not work at zero gravity. A multi-dollar investment and two years of tests resulted in a pen that could write upside down on almost any surface and at any temperature from below freezing to over 300°C. When confronted by the same problem the Russians used a pencil.
Bureau Direct
sales brochure
Despite the fact that George Washington said he would never set foot in England, there is a monument to the great man in Trafalgar Square. It rests on a base of American soil especially sent over. Unfortunately, the lawns there have become a day-long resting place for alcoholics, drug addicts and tramps.
Daily Telegraph
Heidi Lebers, 39, from East Sussex, celebrated New Year by releasing a balloon bearing the message ‘Happy New Year to whoever finds this’. Six weeks later she got a letter from Toucy in France telling her off for littering up the place.
The Times
Lord Berners, the composer, made sure that if other passengers got into his railway carriage they soon left. He would take his temperature anally every five minutes with a large clinical thermometer.
Independent
– from a review of
Brewer’s Rogues, Villains and Eccentrics
by William Donaldson.
The Publishers wish to acknowledge the following publications
Daily Mail
Daily Express
The Times
Daily Telegraph
Sun
Guardian
Financial Times
Independent
Scotsman
Metro
News of the World
Independent on Sunday
Sunday Telegraph
Observer Magazine
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(
OFM
)
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Teletext
Jack Crossley spent some 40 years in Fleet Street, first as a reporter on the
Daily Mail
and later as news editor/assistant editor on the
Mail
, the
Observer
, the
Herald
(Glasgow), the
Daily Express
,
The Times
and, for two crazy months, the
National
Enquirer
in Florida.
He also edited the
Sunday Standard
, a
short-lived
quality broadsheet in Scotland, and was briefly a reporter on the Quincy
Patriot Ledger
in Massachusetts.
He is now retired – sort of – but still regularly provides news and investigation ideas to
newspapers
and magazines. Jack lives in London with his wife, Kate, and they spend much of their time fishing and messing about in boats on the Thames at Henley and off the coast of Cornwall.
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First published in paperback in 2008
ISBN: 978 1 84454 682 4
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