After the runaway success of You Couldn't Make It Up, Jack Crossley returns with his latest cornucopia of wonderful anecdotes and strange goings-on from around the British Isles. In his many years as a newspaper journalist, Jack Crossley has collected literally thousands of these strange but true newspaper items. They are stories that you wouldn't believe if they weren't written down in black and white. You Really Couldn't Make It Up is a wonderful collection of irresistible whimsy, a test...

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 and has compiled this laugh-out-loud collection of anecdotes and strange goin...

'I love these books ... the best books ever. Brilliant' Chris EvansThe sixth book in the bestselling series brings bizarre, astonishing, conversation-starting facts from the clever clogs at the hugely popular BBC quiz show QI.Did you know that:Iceland imports ice cubes.A group of ladybirds is called a loveliness.It is illegal in Saudi Arabia to name a child Sandi.Eight billion particles of f...

If you have ever attempted to swallow a mattress or have forgotten to remove clothes before ironing them then this book will become a vital survival tool. For the rest of us it is a collection of the oddest, funniest and frankly most worrying instructions taken from genuine products around the world. Manufacturers from Turin to Tokyo seem truly concerned that we know their products may be hot after heating, that we should not place fireworks in our mouths or that we should really not use a...

'I love these books ... the best books ever. Brilliant' Chris EvansThe fourth in QI's bestselling facts series - 1,234 QI Facts to Leave You Speechless is filled to the brim with astonishing facts that will leave you befuddled, bemused and bewildered.The QI team have blown your socks off, made your jaw drop and knocked you sideways. Now they return with 1,234 brand-new mind-blowing facts that will leave you utterl...

Lost London is the story of the city as told through the buildings, parks and palaces that are no longer with us. Places like the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, the leading venue for public entertainment in the city for over 200 years, or the Palace of Whitehall whose 1500 rooms made it the largest royal residence in Europe until it was destroyed by fire at the end of the 17th century. From bull rings to ice fairs, plague pits to molly houses, this is a fascinating journey through London's for...

This is a compilation of humorous, interesting and hard to believe tales from over thirty years of conducting insurance inspections on unsuspecting and unbelievable businesses. Whoever said, "You can't make this stuff up", had this adventure in mind.

A humorous collection of hundreds of funny news stories, whacky phenomena, and hilarious blunders and gaffes from around the world, such as: the woman who smuggled 75 live snakes in her bra; the man who held a funeral for his amputated foot; the radioactive cat which got mistaken for a bomb; the human tongue that got served up in a hospital; the X-ray that revealed E.T.'s face in a duck; the youth who woke to find a bullet in his tongue; the tortoise that set a house on fire; and many more...

Discover strange gadgets you never knew existed in this volume from the nation's top collector of curious and interesting information!The writers behind Uncle John's Bathroom Reader present this totally true treasury of amazing gizmos—devilish devices you never knew existed, created by people who thought the world absolutely needed what they had to offer and sell.Read all about:* The onesie that turns your crawling baby into a mop* T...

'I love these books ... the best books ever. Brilliant' Chris Evans1,411 QI Facts to Knock You Sideways, by John Lloyd, John Mitchinson and James Harkin, contains all-new facts from the QI team to astonish, delight and enlighten.1,227 QI Facts blew your socks off. 1,339 QI Facts made your jaw drop. Now the QI team return with this year's groaning sack of astonishment. Prepare to be knocked sideways...

The streets of London flourish like possibly no other city on earth, with stories from its rich history, stories of death - fire - disease, of riots, and grisly murders, but also of tales of happiness, determination and success. Behind every story and every street however, are the people who lived, worked, played, and even murdered there.Everyone thinks they know of the legend of Dick Turpin, the gentleman highway robber, but Turpin was far from being the gentleman he was portrayed...

Contained within the pages of this book are the stories behind some of the most notorious murders in Kent's history. Linda Stratmann re-examines some of the historic crimes that shocked not only the county but Britain as a whole. Among the gruesome cases featured here are the doctor who was poisoned with morphine in Faversham; the couple who were brutally battered to death in their beds in Chislehurst; and, the strange death of a young German man whose body was discovered ...