Andrea BarhamBesprekingen

I learned a lot from this book; all sorts of facts refuting things I "knew." I was gratified that I did have some things right in the face of common usage, though! I knew, for example, that Cleopatra was Macedonian. I knew that the correct phrase is "another think coming," not "another thing."

I didn't know that flush toilets were available to Elizabeth I - way before Thomas Crapper's plumbing firm existed. I was unaware that bats have excellent vision - just not at night, even though they are nocturnal. I didn't know that giant pandas were once thought to be a species of raccoon, or that red pandas aren't bears at all.

This book is short, and each entry is both amusing and informative. I feel I will be much more effective at Trivial Pursuit for having read it.

Interesting enough but not much I hadn’t already read. The one thing that’s stuck with me is the fact that, all the iron that the British government requisitioned in the Second World War was later dumped. The calling for the people to donate their aluminium pots and pans and the removal of all public railings and monuments was nothing more than a giant morale boosting campaign. It was mostly dumped at collection sites, some being dropped out at sea and still more of it is sitting at the bottom of the River Thames! So sad to think of all that beautiful, decorative Edwardian ironwork, lost unnecessarily.

As the jacket blurb says, "The doubts surrounding an array of outlandish facts are destined to be dispelled, as a host of incredible assertions are revealed to be absolutely correct." For example, that the original version of St Mark's Gospel had no account of the Resurrection; or that bone china contains bones. Amusing, and difficult to stop reading.