The Bookseller magazine has since 1978 run a competition to find the oddest book titles. Last year's winner was People Who Don't Know They're Dead: How They Attach Themselves to Unsuspecting Bystanders and What to Do About It.The candidates for this year start with How Green Were the Nazis, claiming to be the first study of the Third Reich's environmental policies.
Then there is The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America: A Guide to Field Identification, about which its publishers say: "Despite the ubiquity of stray shopping carts, little effort has been made to comprehend the complex relationship between cart and landscape."
Proceedings of the Eighteenth International Seaweed Symposium is part of a series stretching back 50 years, covering all things seaweed.
The publishers say it "will be referred to for many years to come".
The final nomination is Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence. The author argues that one suffers "serious harms" by coming into existence that "could not have befallen one had one not come into existence".
Previous winners include: Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Nude Mice (1978); Natural Bust Enlargement with Total Power: How to Increase the other 90 percent of your Mind to Increase the Size of your Breasts (1985); Oral Sadism and the Vegetarian Personality (1986); Lesbian Sadomasochism Safety Manual (1990); Living with Crazy Buttocks (2002); and Bombproof Your Horse (2004).
The website of Cape Town's Labia Cinema lists the film on Idi Amin as "The Last Kind of Scotland". They could just have called it "Lout of Africa". Still, the cinema is a landmark, so much so that the Mount Nelson Hotel has for many years been referred to as "that pink thing behind the Labia". But perhaps it's all just lip service.
It's a dire job relating the traffic conditions to radio listeners every morning. It's a litany of woes, a long list of accidents and traffic lights out of order. Only a very creative and experienced broadcaster could make it even the least bit entertaining. First prize then for grace under pressure goes to Classic FM morning DJ Tony Blewitt. Said he one morning last week: "Traffic lights out of order on Tom Jones. It's not unusual..."
An advertisement in the Property Post offers a "farm house with all the original features, yellow wood floors, French doors, sash windows and wine seller waiting for your tender touch".
"Have a home-based industry or just a get away," the ad recommends. With the wine seller thrown in, it sounds perfect.
A request from Tanzania to our library for back-dated newspapers elicited curiosity from the civic-minded folk in that department who were keen to offer a good deal.
What could the old newspapers be used for? A literacy programme, perhaps? Or possibly for another educational purpose? Upon inquiry all became clear: the newspapers are sold to shopkeepers who use it as wrapping material.
Fish and chips just wouldn't be the same in anything else.
YOU CAN WIN
You could win a prize or cash by sending news snippets, wit and gossip to Did You Hear? The best reader's contribution each week wins a fashionable Rotary watch, valued at R2 450. Berco Express will deliver it to your door. Two more readers could each win a weekend's accommodation for two at any Protea Hotel in SA. All other published contributions win R200. Please include your name, postal address and telephone number with each entry. Last week's Rotary winner: Bryan Buck, Tokai. Protea Hotel winners: Anthony Charles, Athlone; Rob Kane, Jo'burg.
