Continuing the sensational success of the Useless Information Series, the Official Useless Information Society brings you another essential compendium of everything you never needed but always wanted to know. A celebration of the Queens Diamond Jubilee this amazing volume contains all things royal such as: The popular misconception that the royal family cannot vote in political elections. It is only the Queen, herself, who is not allowed to vote ...
Nick Ferrari began his media career as a news reporter on the Sunday Mirror before working on a range of newspaper posts including his position as Editor of the News of the World's Sunday magazine and Assistant Editor of The Daily Mirror. He was instrumental in the launch of the Sky News channel. Over the years he has interviewed everyone in the spotlight from Elton John to Arthur Scargill, David Bowie to Gordon Brown. He is currently the h ...
Every day we pepper our speech with hundreds of phrases, place names and expressions, but rarely do we think about their origins. If we did, we'd be in for a treat, because the stories behind our sayings are often fascinating, amusing and intriguing. Following on from the bestselling March Hares and Monkeys' Uncles, once again Harry Oliver has delved deep into the history behind hundreds of terms in our endlessly rich language, and pro ...
Gareth Rubin had the idea for this book after a horrific date with a Polish girl during which she attempted to engage a Russian couple in a fist-fight. He writes for a number of newspapers including the Observer, Express, Telegraph and Mail on Sunday about travel, property, the arts and personal finance. He recently completed his first novel, All Honourable Men. Jon Parker is a freelance journalist published in the Guardian, The Times, Independe ...
A hilarious compendium of all that's weird and wonderful about life in the British Isles – the eccentric, bizarre bureaucracy and outright oddity reported over the last year by the nation's newspapers, including: Guardian headline, 'Man with false leg hit with toilet lid.'; The Astrological Magazine, 'announces that it is to cease due to unforeseen circumstances.' Jack Crossley spent some 40 years in Fleet Street an ...
We have all touched wood to ward off misfortune, or seen a bride throw a bouquet over her head at a wedding, but how often do we stop to think about where such customs come from, or why we still use them? The truth is that behind many of our daily rituals and beliefs lies a fascinating history of weird and wonderful notions, some rational, others fanciful, that provide a rich and entertaining addition to our lives. In this charming and endlessly ...
When Cy Flood applied for work as a holiday rep, his reasons were simple. He wanted to party like crazy, booze like there was no tomorrow and pull like it was going out of fashion! In his ten years working for holiday companies as a rep, Cy has seen it all. From Lanzarote to Ibiza, from Palma to the Greek Islands, there have been flying cockroaches, flying televisions, drunken pub crawls, angry clients, wild sex and a TV crew on the scene. There ...
Did you know that Maria Ann Smith was genuinely a grandmother who died not knowing that she had given the world one of the best varieties of apple? Or that the word tawdry, meaning tacky or tasteless, has its origins in the fate of a seventh-century Saxon princess, Etheldreda, who was canonised and became St Audrey? Or that when we say Fanny Adams, meaning nothing, this expression is derived from the tragic fate of a real little girl who was mur ...
Evildoers, Take Heed! Justice has a new face, and it wears a mask. Who are we talking about? Ordinary folk like Mike McMullen, a.k.a. The Amazing Whitebread, who become something entirely new and occasionally borderline pathological: Real-Life Superheroes (RLSHs). «Being a singing superheroine is a way for me to not only pay the bills, it also helps me give the baddies such a headache.» –Danger Woman Complete with costumes and all the gadgetry ...
