No. 1205: The winners
Jaspistos reports: Competitiors were asked for an extract from an imaginary Encyclo- paedia of Useless Knowledge.
'Recently,' complained Ellen Brigwell in a postscript to her submission, 'my favourite bit of useless knowledge — that Liechtenstein is the world's biggest exporter of false teeth — was spoiled by being broadcast. However,' she added with satis- faction, 'they failed to give away the fact that in the Twenties it was the biggest ex- porter of black false teeth, then enjoying a brief vogue.' It was yet another truth-is- stranger-than-fiction competition. Brows- ing through the Oxford Classical Dic- tionary, I came across this spectacularly unhelpful entry under Carmen Nelei: 'Of this dim work five fragments (19 words) survive, embedded in Charisius and Festus. Charisius ranks it for age with the Odissia of Livius. The metre and content of three fragments suggest, if anything, a drama.' Ah, 'the fatal futility of Fact'! as Henry James put it, I had intended that the knowledge you provided should be real, although the en- cyclopaedia was imaginary. But since only T. M. Neill (who gave me a stunningly pro- saic lecture on Potato Peelings) and one or two others read that into my words, I have welcomed the fantasts as well as the fact merchants. I'm only parting with four prizes this week: it's difficult to be simultaneously boring and amusing. Carole Angier, 1 think, succeeded best, so she receives, by courtesy of the publisher Mit- chel] Beazley, the two-volume encyclo- paedia The Joy of Knowledge. She and the others printed below are awarded £9 each.
Grapeselier. Victorian buttonhook made for use with the Grapesel Lady's Boot, which enjoyed a brief vogue in August 1868. This boot not only hid the ankle, it also hid the button. Its 38 but- tons, therefore, were sewn on the inside of the uppers. This created the problem solved by the grapeselier. Despite its specialised function, vast
1868 (after which they went bankrupt); it is therefore valueless as a collector's item.
Grapesjumbogenlund. Small uninhabited island off the coast of Sweden. Once a calling point on the migration path of the grey bogus (Stellen- bogus bogs), now extinct. Small volcano on NE tip, now dead.
Grape-String, Sir Albert (1800-1894). Scientist and inventor. His thousands of inventions have remained obscure, but he is remembered for his discovery in 1893 (discredited in 1894) of Polifita (q.v.), a hardening agent which he claimed caus- ed the peel in marmalade.
(Carole Angier) Money Facts Money does not grow on trees.
Any odd number of 50p pieces will, collectivelY, always have an odd number of sides. Amongst the many famous people who use money are Ian Botham, Harold Wilson and Jan Leeming.
Regardless of atmospheric pressure and air ternP- erature, the value of a 2p coin remains constant-
A 1 op coin weighs the same as 18 notes. The number of letters in the word 'note' cor- responds exactly with the number of sides of a pound note.
British coins are not legal tender in Afghanistan. Unlike the current one-pound note, the new one- pound coin will be non-inflammable. (V. Ernest Cox) Shoe Machinery, American, Nineteenth-century Developments in: A major advance was made bY Lyman R. Blake (1835-83), who patented a machine capable of sewing soles to uppers in 1858. Quick to see the significance of this break- through was Gordon McKay (1821-1903), who promoted the device throughout the US and in 1862 patented an improved version. By 1876 the Blake-McKay machine was in extensive use bY American shoe manufacturers, and this set the stage for fresh major developments. In 1880 Charles Goodyear (1833-96), who had secured the rights to a welt-sewing machine in the late 1860s, joined forces with McKay, and the re- percussions of this merger were dramatic. Important movements of capital in the field led to the centralisation of machine ownership as an ,I. accomplished fact with the formation in 1890 01 the United Shoe Machinery Co., Inc. From this grew the remarkable dominance in the twentieth- century trade of the machine-sewn shoe. (Basil Ransome-Davies) Grudge tgruj], Ernest Vernon Reginald (1913" 1982). English man of letters. Born in Chisle- hurst, he attended Crampden Close Secondary School where he won prizes for orthography and effort. His first publication, a letter to the Beckenham Chronicle (1931), demanded the castration of the Croydon Cemetery Flasher (q.v.). Subsequently he contributed to manY periodicals, including the Elmers End Clarion and the Plaistow Independent. EspeciallY noteworthy is his ode 'You work so hard for England, Queen' (Sidcup Echo, 1977). In 1981 his interest shifted to radio, when the BBC's MY Answers? featured his proposal that Iranian shop-lifters should be hanged. At his death, he had published (or broadcast) more than thirteen items of correspondence. His prose — laconic, knotted, sometimes recalling the verse of HardY yet always intensely idiosyncratic — made him one of the leading literary figures of Oldbolt Road, London SE26. A definitive bibliography
of his writings has yet to be compiled. . (Richard Parlour)
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