Botham - The Mega Book of Useless Information An Official Usless Information Society Publication

Kemo Sabe means soggy shrub in Navajo.

Napoleon carried chocolate on all his military campaigns.

In 1973, Swedish confectionery salesman Roland Ohisson was buried in a coffin made entirely of chocolate.

Someones gender can be guessed with 95 per cent accuracy just by smelling his or her breath.

On average, Elizabeth Taylor has remarried every four years and five months.

Pontius Pilate was born in Scotland.

When he was young, Leonardo da Vinci drew a picture of a horrible monster and placed it near a window in order to surprise his father. The drawing was so convincing that, upon seeing it, his father believed it to be real and set out to protect his family until the boy showed him it was just a picture. Da Vincis father then enrolled his son in an art class.

Ten per cent of Star Trek fans replace the lenses on their glasses every five years, whether they need to or not.

Ancient Romans at one time used human urine as an ingredient in their toothpaste.

People who are lying to you tend to look up and to the left.

The middle name of Jimmy Hoffa is Riddle. The legendary American union figure disappeared without trace on 30 July 1975.

Boys who have unusual first names are more likely to have mental health problems than boys with conventional names.

One in three consumers pays off his or her credit card bill every month.

Pop star Justin Timberlakes half-eaten French toast sold for over $3,000 on eBay.

One in three snakebite victims is drunk. One in five is tattooed.

Michelangelo was harshly criticized by a Vatican official for the nudity in his fresco The Last Judgement, which hangs on the walls of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. In retaliation, the artist made some changes to his work: he painted in the face of the complaining clergyman and added donkeys ears and a snakes tail.

More than 50 per cent of lottery players go back to work after winning the jackpot.

Children who are breast-fed tend to have an IQ seven points higher than children who are not.

Male hospital patients fall out of bed twice as often as female hospital patients.

Fewer than ten per cent of criminals commit about 67 per cent of all crime.

We inhale about 700,000 of our own skin flakes each day.

A pickled snake bit Li of Suzhou, China, when he opened a bottle of rice wine.

As his body was never found, a German court officially declared Hitler dead as recently as 1956.

More than 50 per cent of the worlds population have never made or received a telephone call.

The average human eats eight spiders at night during their lifetime.

All the chemicals in the human body have a combined value of approximately 4.

Smokers eat more sugar than non-smokers.

In ancient Sparta, Greece, married men were not allowed to live with their wives until they turned 30.

Dorothy Parker wanted This is on me inscribed on her tombstone.

Half the worlds population is under 25 years of age.

In 1994, Chicago artist Dwight Kalb sent US talk-show host David Letterman a statue of Madonna, made of 180lb (82kg) of ham.

The people killed most often during bank robberies are the robbers.

An exocannibal eats only enemies, while an indocannibal eats only friends.

Howard Hughes, the American billionaire businessman, aviator and film producer, never once attended a board of directors meeting, or any sort of meeting, at any of the companies he owned.

Although Howard Hughes had 15 personal attendants and three doctors on full-time duty, he died of neglect and malnutrition, caused by his intense desire to be left alone.

King Louis XIV of France established in his court the position of Royal Chocolate Maker to the King.

The Nestls havent run Nestl since 1875.

Astronauts get taller when they are in space.

When a person is wide awake, alert, and mentally active, they are still only 25 per cent aware of what various parts of their body are doing.

It has been estimated that men have been riding horses for over 3,000 years.

The make-up entrepreneur Elizabeth Ardens real name was Florence Nightingale Graham, but she changed it once her company became successful at the beginning of the 1900s.

Heavyweight boxing champion George Foreman has five sons named George; George Jnr, George III, George IV, George V and George VI.

A five-and-a-half-year-old weighing 250lb (113kg) was exhibited at a meeting of the Physical Society of Vienna on 4 December 1894. She ate a normal diet and was otherwise in good health but she wasnt able to sweat.

People who have computers in their homes tend to watch 40 per cent less television than average.

A German soldier was riding in the back seat of a World War I plane when the engine suddenly stalled and he fell out of his seat while over two miles (3 km) above ground. As he was falling, the plane started falling too, and he was blown back into his own seat by the wind and was able to land the plane safely.

Queen Elizabeth I named a man as the Official Uncorker of Bottles, and passed a law that stated all bottles found washed up on beaches had to be opened by him and no one else, in case they contained sensitive military messages. The penalty for anyone else opening a bottle was death.

Afraid of growing old, Countess Bathory of Hungary became convinced that if she bathed in the blood of young girls, she could stay young for ever, and so for ten years she drained the blood of imprisoned girls so that she could take blood baths in a huge iron vat. After one intended victim escaped, the King of Hungary ordered his soldiers to storm her castle. When they found many dead and some still-alive bodies, they locked the countess inside her room and bricked up the entrance, leaving only a small opening through which she was given food until she died.

People overwhelmingly tend to marry partners who live near them.

Charles Darwin cured his snuff habit by keeping his snuffbox in the basement and the key for the snuffbox in the attic.

Voltaire drank between 50 and 65 cups of coffee every day.

Manfredo Settala (16001680) is the only person in all recorded history to have been killed by a meteorite.

Rembrandt died penniless with a friend coming up with the 2.85 it cost to bury him.

Young children are poisoned by houseplants more often than by detergents and other chemicals.

An Indian emperor was given four wives when he inherited the throne at the age of eight.

Riverdance star Michael Flatley is also an accomplished concert flute player, a champion boxer and a chess master. He has been listed by the National Geographic Society as a Living Treasure.

Pablo Picasso has sold more works of art individually costing over $1 million than any other artist, with 211 Picasso pieces topping the million dollar mark, well ahead of the 168 Pierre-Auguste Renoir works.

When there is no one else waiting to use a public phone, callers average 90 seconds talking, but if someone is waiting, the callers average four minutes per call.

Men more often dream about their male heroes, bosses, friends or role models than about women.

Howard Hughes became so compulsive about germs that he used to spend hours swabbing his arms over and over again with rubbing alcohol.

In 1949, Jack Wurm, an unemployed man, was aimlessly walking on a California beach when he came across a washed-up bottle containing this message: To avoid confusion, I leave my entire estate to the lucky person who finds this bottle and to my attorney, Barry Cohen, share and share alike. Daisy Alexander, June 20, 1937. It was not a hoax and Mr Wurm received over $6 million from the Alexander estate.