Authors: David Pickering
Jackpot
Which record company was set up by Berry Gordy in Detroit in 1959?
1.
Other pets kept by US presidents have included a pygmy hippo (Calvin Coolidge), an elephant (James Buchanan) and a cow (William Taft).
2.
The first London postcodes were introduced by Sir Rowland Hill as early as the 1850s. The rest of Britain did not follow until the 1960s.
3.
The nickname referred to the toffees that were sold to early fans of the team from a nearby sweet shop by a woman known as Old Ma Bushell. Competition from the black-and-white striped mints made by the rival Mother Nobletts Toffee Shop encouraged Old Ma Bushell to seek permission to sell toffees inside the club’s ground.
4.
‘Yeh-the’ means ‘the thing’ in the Sherpa language.
5.
The television cookery programme
Two Fat Ladies
borrowed its title from the bingo call. The two fat ladies who presented the programme even had a motorbike with the registration number TFL 88.
6.
This compares with Fred Astaire’s feet, which were insured for $650,000, and Jimmy Durante’s nose, which was insured for $140,000.
7.
The first serious attempt to climb K2 was organised in 1902 by Oscar Eckenstein and Aleister Crowley, later to achieve notoriety as ‘the wickedest man in the world’: they failed and it was not until 1954 that the peak was successfully scaled.
8.
The Prius is one of a new generation of environmentally friendly ‘hybrid’ cars and thus much loathed by
Top Gear
host Jeremy Clarkson, who memorably arranged to have one shot to pieces and then destroyed by fire.
9.
The pseudonym in question is variously suggested to have been inspired by the name of US singer Bob Dylan or else by that of his flatmate, one of the stars of the television series
The Likely Lads
.
10.
The tune of ‘Happy birthday’ was composed in 1893 by two US schoolteachers for their children to sing at the start of the day, the words originally starting ‘Good morning to you’. The version known today was copyrighted in 1935: until 2030 every time it is sung royalties should, strictly speaking, be paid to the copyright owners, Warner Chappell.
11.
This Greek title was selected when the game in question was reorganised in 1874, but was later replaced by the current name on the suggestion of the British prime minister Arthur Balfour.
12.
The story goes that brothers Angus and Malcolm Young settled on the name after noticing it on the back of their sister Margaret’s sewing-machine.
13.
The latter quotation was the person in question’s response to a suggestion that he would soon be well enough to visit Bognor Regis.
14.
A swagman was an itinerant worker, who wandered from place to place in search of employment carrying all his belongings (his ‘swag’) in a roll on his back.
15.
The war was triggered by an assault upon an English sea captain, Robert Jenkins, during which he lost an ear. Jenkins subsequently brought his severed, pickled ear before an outraged House of Commons, leading to the declaration of war.
16.
The ‘Lake Wobegon effect’ describes the tendency of ordinary people to overestimate their achievements and capabilities. An example of the effect may be seen in the 1981 survey which revealed that 80 per cent of drivers believed they were in the top 30 per cent of drivers.
17.
Not dissimilar to the verdict on Ava Gardner’s screen test, which had the director observing happily, ‘She can’t talk! She can’t act! She’s sensational!’
18.
The chemical causing the smell is butyl seleno-mercaptan. Bad though it is, modern scientists have created even worse stinks. Examples include ‘Who-Me’, a chemical that smelt of rotting carcasses: it was created during World War II and used by the French Resistance to smear on their German occupiers, thus humiliating them.
19.
According to some scientists, blondes are more likely to be left-handed and are also more susceptible to learning disabilities (though they hesitated to suggest this lent credence to the notion of the ‘dumb blonde’).
20.
All their songs were written by their mother. In a Channel Four survey of 2004 ‘The Cheeky song (Touch my bum)’ was voted the worst pop record of all time.
21.
According to US wit Dorothy Parker, the two most beautiful words in the English language are ‘check enclosed’.
22.
The husband in question was later executed, after which Bess Throckmorton carried his embalmed head around with her for the rest of her life. After her death, the head passed to their son and was eventually buried with him.
23.
The
Voyager 2
spacecraft, launched in 1977, is expected to reach the Dog Star in just 250,000 years’ time.
24.
In 1997 the Mars Pathfinder rover examined a large rock on the surface of Mars: because it resembled in shape the head of a bear, scientists christened it Yogi Rock.
25.
This novelist rose to a relatively senior position in the Post Office. When he was stuck for an idea, he is said to have based plots on letters that the Post Office had been unable to deliver and left to gather dust in their ‘lost-letter’ box.
26.
Bringing Up Baby
is thought to have been the first film in which the word ‘gay’ was used to refer to matters homosexual.
27.
If so, they take their place alongside Antique, Tequila, Ultraviolet and Syphilis.
28.
The vegetable in question was supposedly worn by Welsh soldiers fighting under King Cadwallader to distinguish them from their Saxon enemies.
29.
Interestingly enough, the ragtime piano that thumped out the tune was played by Hilda Woodward, mother of the band’s frontman.
30.
It is uncertain whether the lady in question intended to throw herself under the king’s horse, or merely to stop the race. The fact that she had bought a return rail ticket that morning suggests to some that she fully intended returning home.
31.
The nickname refers to the refreshing breezes that blow across the city, although there have also been suggestions that it referred originally to the habitual boasting of its inhabitants.
32.
The explorer in question was rejected by Cubby Broccoli because his hands were too big and his face looked like that of a farmer.
33.
The US version of the programme relocated the action to Scranton, Pennsylvania, highlights of which include the Scranton Anthracite Museum.
34.
The original teddy bear that inspired the Winnie-the-Pooh stories can still be seen, in a New York library. In 1960, a Latin version of his adventures,
Winnie ille Pu
, became the first foreign-language book to appear in the
New York Times
Bestseller List.
35.
The lead roles were originally intended for Diana Ross and Steve McQueen.
36.
Other albums by the same artist included
Lumpy Gravy, Burnt Weeny Sandwich, Weasels Ripped My Flesh and Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch
.
37.
The same publication refers to the Prince of Wales as Brian, to Prince Philip as Keith, the late Princess Margaret as Yvonne and the late Princess Diana as Cheryl.
38.
Sherlock Holmes lived at 221B Baker Street, ignoring the fact that in Conan Doyle’s day the numbers only went as far as 100. Letters addressed to the detective are now delivered to the Sherlock Holmes Museum, at 239 Baker Street.
39.
Such was the notoriety of this address that the street was later renamed Ruston Close before being demolished in the 1970s and rebuilt as Bartle Road: a garden now occupies the site of number 10.
40.
Hardly had he done so than several tons of it were delivered to the White House by a body representing the growers.
41.
His body has never been discovered, promoting rumours that he may have been kidnapped by a Russian or Chinese submarine or abducted by a UFO.
42.
The fictional assassin’s methods, especially the technique by which he creates a false identity, have been copied by many later criminals. Yigal Amir, who assassinated Israeli premier Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, owned a Hebrew translation of the book.
43.
More recently, a Beatles tribute band called the Blue Meanies has attracted a large following, despite the fact that they make no attempt to look like the Beatles and are all Mexican.
44.
The origins of the nickname Dixie for the southern USA are obscure. Some say it is a reference to the Mason–Dixon Line between north and south, others to the 10-dollar notes issued by the Louisiana banks (
dix
being ten in French) or else to a kindly slave-owner by the name of Dixy.
45.
The person in question also owned works by Michelangelo, Canaletto and Botticelli, but decided against buying the Empire State Building because that would be ‘too ostentatious’.
46.
When Fay Wray died in 2004, at the age of 96, the lights of the Empire State Building in New York were extinguished for 15 minutes in her honour.
47.
The rhyme is not a very accurate version of the real events: in fact, Lizzie Borden’s stepmother (not her real mother) received 18 blows, while her father received just one – and it may not have been Lizzie at all (she was acquitted and died in 1927).
48.
Suggestions that the star in question died because the Germans thought Winston Churchill was on his plane have since been discounted. It appears that the Germans knew perfectly who was on board and targeted him for his outspoken support for the Allied cause.
49.
Other notable sayings by the same person included ‘If you think you can, you can. And if you think you can’t, you’re right.’
50.
In reality, only one episode of the series was filmed in the city in which it was supposedly set: the rest were filmed in and around the Paramount Studios in Los Angeles.
51.
It is also one of the few venomous mammals, with a spine on its foot capable of causing severe pain in humans.
52.
The causes of Morrison’s death in Paris at the age of 27 have never been properly explained. There has been much speculation that he is still alive, living in India, Africa or South America, above a supermarket in New Jersey or as a cowboy in Oregon.
53.
The woman, a feminist called Valerie Solanas, was apparently annoyed with her victim because he had lost a film script she had lent him.
54.
The name Super Bowl was never intended to be a permanent name for the event but just to be used as a stopgap while something better was thought of. It was coined in the 1970s through reference to the Rose Bowl game contested by US colleges and the bouncy Super Ball toys then very popular with children.
55.
The part of the lady who delivers the line was actually played by director Rob Reiner’s mother.
56.
Not everyone buried in Poets’ Corner was a poet. Also buried there is Thomas Parr, who achieved fame through his great age. Having married for the second time at the age of 122, he finally died in 1635 reputedly aged 152.
57.
Although initially addressed to Marilyn Monroe, and later rewritten in memory of Diana, Princess of Wales, it was originally inspired by a tribute to the singer Janis Joplin.
58.
It may help to know that the actor’s real name is Nicholas Kim Coppola. He changed his name to avoid accusations of favouritism, borrowing his new one from Luke Cage, a superhero in Marvel Comics.
59.
He performed solely in mime after an early reviewer praised his physical comedy but disliked his voice. Later in life, though, he became a popular after-dinner speaker.
60.
In modern cockney rhyming slang, ‘Vera Lynn’ variously stands for ‘skin’ and thus ‘cigarette paper’ or, more ominously, ‘heroin’.
61.
Many years later the same words were famously repeated by US President Ronald Reagan after he was wounded in an assassination attempt.
62.
In 2005 this was voted the fifth most memorable line in film history in an American Film Institute survey. Most memorable of all was ‘Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn’ from
Gone With the Wind
.
63.
After England beat Argentina in the 2002 World Cup, some fans celebrated by wearing T-shirts bearing the legend ‘Look, no hands!’
64.
Legend has it that the Bonnie Prince handed over the recipe to the Mackinnon family of Skye in gratitude for their hospitality after his defeat against the English in 1746. The drink in question has only been produced commercially since 1912.
65.
It was named after the great-granddaughter of the founder of the German Krupp company that originally made the gun.
66.
The word itself comes from the name of Lord Dundreary, a vacuous aristocrat in the 1858 play
Our American Cousin
by Tom Taylor. He was particularly relished by audiences for his nonsensical sayings, such as ‘Birds of a feather gather no moss’. It was while watching this play that Abraham Lincoln was assassinated.
67.
According to Manson himself, he was one of five angels who would eventually rule the world. The other four angels were the Beatles.
68.
Items connected with Buddy Holly continued to be found at the scene of his fatal air crash in 1959 for some years. His famous black-rimmed glasses were located in a local sheriff’s office in 1980 and were returned to his family. They were sold in 1998 for $80,000, making them the world’s most expensive pair of glasses.
69.
The vessel is well known for its many ghosts. Particularly notorious is the first-class swimming pool, which is supposedly haunted by several female ghosts in 1930s swimming costumes.
70.
John Wisden himself was considered the best all-rounder in English cricket in the middle of the nineteenth century. In 1850 he clean-bowled all ten wickets in an innings at Lord’s, a feat that remains unmatched in first-class cricket to this day.