Trivia

Tue., Sept. 23, 1997

L.M. Boyd Crown Syndicate

People who wear bifocals have a tough time in supermarkets. Shelf labels tend to be too far for the near lens and too close for the far lens. But your computer glasses, if any, will do well there.

Pontius Pilate, it’s believed, was born in what’s now Forthingall, Scotland.

Q. Why can’t you buy a bass in the fish market?

A. A 1926 federal law prohibits such sale of that gamefish.

Q. Did you ever find out why heavy beer drinkers hardly ever get diarrhea?

A. Bacteria causes most diarrhea. Beer stimulates stomach acid. It kills bacteria.

Somebody killed a villager with a rice sickle. This, according to the historical footnotes from the China of 1235. The chief authority in town called all the field men together and ordered them to lay down their sickles. These appeared clean. But flies landed on one, only one. The owner confessed. Popular Science editors call it the first recorded crime solved with the help of insects.

A peppercorn remains flavorsome for more than a century.

A Huegenot named Bernard Palisay expressed the opinion in 1589 that fossils were the remains of living creatures. Those who didn’t agree burned him at the stake.

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