Believe it or not...

my version of Ripley’s mad facts

LET IT RIP

I’M delighted to read that Ripley’s Believe It Or Not books are being updated and revised. Further, I have to tell you, the publishers are looking for contributions from people who spotted any peculiar facts over the last 40 years since the last Ripley’s appeared.

Well! Where does one begin? Here would be my own contribution – travel facts, which to the very best of my knowledge are accurate in every respect.

1 The Great Wall of China is the biggest military construction on earth. So much for feng shui

2 There is only one set of traffic lights in the whole of Co. Leitrim. Last time I was there, they weren’t working.

3 The shortest airline flight available for purchase is in the Orkneys, from Westrays to Papa Westray. Flights on this route are scheduled for one and a half minutes, but the actual flying time is closer to one minute. The record for the fastest flight is 53 seconds. The ten-minute flight from Galway to the Aran Islands seems endless in comparison.

4 ’Philippines acts on MILF infighting’ said the headline. The story continued: ‘The Philippines has deployed the army to try to quell an outbreak of violence between two different factions of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).’ To be honest, it wasn’t the story I was hoping for.

5 Middle East now – Herod’s first wife was called Doris, whom he divorced. He had his second wife Marriamne executed. So long Mariamne.

6 In the 19th century in the town of Carna, County Galway, a factory employed local girls to make buttons. Bog cotton, which was common in the area’s extensive blanket bogs, was used as a filling for the buttons.

7 The family in The Swiss Family Robinson, by Johann David Wyss, are not called Robinson at all. The title was misconstrued from the original title ‘Swiss Robinson Crusoe Family’. A third of all film and television adaptations based on the book erroneously give the family surname as ‘Robinson’.

8 Drilling off the coast of Cork could yet yield billions of barrels of oil. In fact, it’s estimated there may be nearly as much oil off the Cork coast as in all the underground bunkers in the border counties put together.

9 A Tipperaryman was arrested for making poitin in Libya in 1977. He escaped prison and a public flogging when he convinced the court that he had been engaged in a religious ritual in honour of St Patrick.

10 Both the legend of King Arthur and that of the Holy Grail were largely the creation of the Irish monks who founded Glastonbury in Somerset in the 6th century.

In Sicily, in more recent times, weekend@dailymail.ie monks turned to a more active role in community life to raise funds. In the 1960s the good friars of Mazzarino were arrested and tried for having acted as messengers between the Mafia and their intended blackmail victims.

The Capuchin fathers patiently explained to the non-Sicilian court that they were by no means to be considered advisers, instigators or accomplices of the criminals. As writer Luigi Barzini put it in 1964 in his book The Italians: ‘The friars had only done their best to persuade the intended victims, to whom they brought the Mafia’s blackmail message, that it was safer to pay, and pay quickly, in order to save their lives.

Were not one or two men, who had stubbornly overlooked the advice, subsequently found dead in solitary country lanes? Yes, of course, the monks had written some of the messages themselves, but only because the mafiosi were illiterate and did not own a typewriter.”

A WEB OF LIES

RISING sea levels could affect human evolution, scientists have claimed. Paleoanthropologists believe humans could evolve to have webbed hands and feet and less body hair to enable them to move quickly through the water.

This column says – nonsense. If that really were a realistic scenario, the people of Ireland would long ago have developed webbed feet. Mind you, in north-westerly areas of the countries such as in Derry or Donegal, evolution has produced an ability to counterbalance the gales that blow in from

the Atlantic.

Ireland is officially the windiest country in the EU, and I remember being in Derry one day when the wind stopped blowing. Everybody just fell over.

GRAND TRAMS

I WAS talking to a tram buff recently; the study of trams is a niche interest, certainly, but absorbing nonetheless. This chap reckoned there were only a dozen or so A-listers in the tram world. In his opinion Lisbon was our nearest port of call for one true superstar of the tram tracks. Certainly, the Portuguese capital is a joy to get round by public transport; the clanking, custardyellow, sardine-can trams are the business. Almost as famous as San Francisco’s cable cars, these are among the few trams in the world to have become true tourist attractions in their own right. Running them a close second in Europe are those of Budapest. As the carriages rattle through the old cobbled streets of the city along by the Danube and round the great squares of Pest on the westerly side of the river, you expect Greta Garbo to get on at every stop. In black and white. But Lisbon’s wood-panelled gems take first prize. For maximum tram fun, use routes 12, 18, 25 or 28, still served by the original cars.

MUSIC TO THE EARS

A RECENT study has found that a man carrying an instrument case, such as a guitar or violin, is more likely to attract the positive attention of woman than a man carrying a briefcase.

This latest study was carried out in France. A man, carrying a briefcase, attempted to stop women in the street to ask for directions, and try then to engage the lady in conversation. The same man tried to do the same while carrying a guitar case. In the second instance he was much more successful in having a positive and friendly response.

Similar studies have been mounted elsewhere, with largely the same results. It seems that if you are a man carrying a musical instrument you are viewed as either (a) more interesting or (b) not so much of a threat.

This is largely in line with another survey in a woman’s magazine.

The publication listed the types of men, in general terms, that women tended to go for.

All the usual things you might imagine – good-looking men, men with a sense of humour (preferably self-deprecating) etc. But at number one was just one word: ‘Musicians’.

Time for me to get the old fiddle out again, I think. (Even though I’m not much good at it – heh heh heh.)

PROGRESS REPORT

YOU probably know that the average person puts on a half a stone on a two week holiday.

So spare a thought for us travel writers. We really have to watch our weight.

Myself? Immediately after Christmas I designed a regime that a Cistercian monk would baulk at.

But now it’s the middle of February, and a report says that this is the danger period for New Year’s resolutions.

A lot of people give up on their no-smoking, drinking-less, or exercising-more routines.

But if you get over this period, you might just have a chance to make the resolution stick.

I vowed to lose a stone by the end of February, and I’ve only got a stone-and-a-half to go.

MACEDONIA MASH-UP

THE country formerly known as the Republic of Macedonia officially changed its name to the Republic of North Macedonia, theoretically ending a decadeslong dispute.

The country can be called ‘North Macedonia’ for short and the national language should continue to be referred to as ‘Macedonian,’ state spokesman Mile Boshnjakovski said

He added that its citizens should continue to be called ‘Macedonians,’ not ‘North Macedonians.’

Whoever would have thought splitting up a country into north and south could be so problematical?

But names of countries do develop organically. When Ghana was a British colony it was called the Gold Coast; once it had been plundered by colonial powers, Coast would have been a good name, but Ghana was chosen instead.