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COMPETITION

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Useless information

Jaspistos

IN COMPETITION NO. 1965 you were invited to supply a poem providing a great deal of useless information.

There is a Society for the Preservation (or Propagation) of Useless Information, with Keith Waterhouse as president. I know this because last year a letter (alas, never published) was addressed to The Spectator pointing out, for the Society's benefit, that all the Underground stations in the London area contain at least one let- ter included in the word 'mackerel', except for — the answer, if you care for answers, is St John's Wood. In judging this comp, I could not possibly know whether or not your information was true. It would have taken me days to check that Chicago's first refrigerator arrived in 1913, that spiders have no sense of smell, that the largest British potato was grown by J.H. East, that haggis originally came from France, and that the Christmas issue of The Spectator weighed 200 grams. I have swallowed it all whole.

Commendations to D.E. Poole, Philip Dacre, 0. Smith and Tim Hopkins. The prizewinners, printed below, get £25 each, and the bonus bottle of Isle of Jura Single Malt Scotch whisky goes to Robert Crozier.

According to Richard Strachey, Bertrand Russell

owed his long life to defecation two times daily. In the Fifties both the Comets and the Times

were led by Bill Haley.

The poets Herrick, Quarles, Dryden and Swift were all related.

Duncan Grant's former homosexual lover and his daughter mated.

Only one species of bird, the fruit-eating bat and humans need vitamin C.

Auden was once rent collector to Gypsy Rose Lee. The ancient Egyptians thought the sun was a ball of dung.

Gesualdo, Caravaggio and Cellini all killed but weren't hung.

Leon Bakst had shocking sexual habits.

Steps along a length of wood are not rebates but rabbets. A butterfly develops wings and sexual organs while a chrysalis. Composer and cycle victim Ernst Chausson was one 19th-century artist not to die of syphilis. Disraeli once said an Arab was a Jew on a horse. Ludwig van Beethoven didn't invent Morse.

(Robert Crozier) Bob Hope is 93 this year. Nordkapp is in the Arctic region. Muntjac are called the 'barking' deer. Earl Haig founded the British Legion. The rod (also called perch or pole) Measures just five point nought three metres. Offenbach wrote that Barcarolle.

There is no steeple on St Peter's.

Zythum (a beer)'s the final word In Chambers English Dictionary. The moa was a flightless bird; And Wordsworth's wife was christened Mary. Delius hailed from Bradford, Yorks; Vlaminck was French. Blue tits aren't blue.

Hares do not burrow. Guido Fawkes Was born in York. This is all true.

(Gerard Benson) Plautus means `flat-foot ; Marie Antoinette Could turn her ears right inside out (says Ripley); Our Scrabble champion triumphed with buvette Carefully placed to make the word score triply. From 1931 to '35 Speed was unlimited on British roads; Babies should eat selenium, to thrive; Acne is pregnancy for Pi pa toads.

Euripides won third prize with his Medea; Before it strikes, a rattlesnake must coil; RFC pilots suffered diarrhoea From leaky engines spraying castor oil.

The axolotl does a Peter Pan, Eschewing the appearance of maturity.

A Vestal Virgin coupling with a man Was buried living. This encouraged purity.

(Sebastian Robinson) The only element that ends my Is mercury. Fort Yukon's east of Nome.

The last Old Testament book is Malachi.

`Lepers repel' presents a palindrome.

The ancient Greeks had sausage recipes.

Each armadillo's an identical twin.

The Athenian orator Demosthenes Shaved half his head. Slide fasteners that came in A hundred years ago are now called zips.

Wilt Chamberlain is 7ft lin tall.

The proper singular form of thrips is thrips. Psoriasis is dry (not humid) scall.

In 1980 greyhound Indian Joe Was winner of the Derby. Now you know.

(Ray Kelley) Rape has been noted in the British rook. Nero ate leeks. Someone once named a book Cooking With God. Castrati don't go bald. Lamb was a stutterer. Freud's first chow was called Lun Yu. King's Lynn is eighty miles from Tring (Ninety from Kent). Kellogg, the cornflake king, Invented peanut butter. Alan Beith Went to a school in Macclesfield. False teeth Were sometimes made of celluloid. Sterne's daughter Lived much in France. Our brains are mostly water. Haslet is widely eaten in the North.

Ferrets catch colds. Pope Adrian the Fourth Choked on a fly and died. Swifts drink in flight. Michael Caine was born Maurice Micklewhite. The nose contains erectile tissue. Gissing Died overseas. I have a blue sock missing.

(Chris Tingley)