Facts to make you go“WOW!”
WORDS:DOUGLAS MCPHERSON IMAGES: SHUTTERSTOCK
WOW! All Creatures Great And Small author Alf Wight based his pen name, James Herriot, on the name of Birmingham City goalkeeper Jim Herriot.
◆ A drawing of Queen Victoria, a false moustache, a dinosaur’s jawbone and a cannonball are among 1700 items listed as lost, missing or stolen from Britain’s museums.
◆ In the 1890s, a tattooed lady in a circus could earn in a week the same amount the average worker took home in six months.
◆ Shakespeare’s Merry Wives of Windsor, written in 1602, contains the first written use of the word “birding” to describe bird watching.
◆ The first cloverleaf road interchange opened in New Jersey in 1929.
◆ The striped hyena is the national animal of Lebanon.
◆ Sylvester McCoy is the only Doctor Who actor who has appeared in the classic series, the TV movie and the new series.
◆ The first post boxes were installed on the Channel Islands in 1852 and reached London in 1855.
◆ Automatic ticket barriers were first trialled on the London Underground in 1964.
◆ Ethel Cain was the first voice of the Speaking Clock when the service launched in 1936.
◆ AMS 1 is the number plate of Alan Sugar’s Rolls Royce Phantom 8.
◆ The expression “neck oil”, meaning beer, dates back to Victorian times.
◆ Woolstock, Iowa, the birthplace of Superman actor George Reeves, has a phone booth in the street with a mannequin inside dressed as Clark Kent changing into his alter ego.
