Stan Bowes, from Diggle, has uncovered some interesting and entertaining facts – you just couldn’t make them up
IN 2002, after months of preparation, British yachtsman Jim Hughes’s round-the-world plans were ruined when Icelandic fisherman Eriker Olafsson fouled his moorings.
Hughes’s yacht Dragon Song was anchored in the Solent, near Portsmouth, and Eriker caused £27,000 worth of damage.
In August 2003, one year and a day after the first incident, Hughes was ready to set off again when Eriker decided to sail across to apologise to for the damage: only to smash into the Dragon Song causing a further £20,000 of damage!
Meanwhile, in 2002, two veteran runners competing in a 50-mile circular race around Rotherham, Yorkshire, made an unexpected 20-mile detour into the neighbouring county of Nottinghamshire – because they forgot their glasses.
Les Huxley, 57, and Barry Bedford, 61, couldn’t read the route map or race signs and got lost for 18 hours.
Long after the other 140 runners were home in bed, they eventually crossed the line at 1:30am – but only after phoning the race organisers to come and fetch them.
Improve your vocabulary
Frippet: A flighty young woman prone to showing off.
Runcible: Edward Lear, in his poem The Owl and the Pussycat mentions a runcible spoon. But what is it? Simple: a pickle-fork!
Apophthegms
42.713% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
Experience teaches you to recognize a mistake when you’ve made it again.
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