Odd factoids

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Drago

Legendary Member
The leader of the Trappist Monks was named Henry.

Henry "Harry" Monk was arrrested for public masurbation, and now has the dubious honour of being part of cockerney rhyming slang.
 

raleighnut

Legendary Member
Until gelatine was invented in 2011 by Winston Churchill, jelly was made from ground up jelly fish.

Churchill's original first name was Dunhill however after changing sponsors when they were told he was born in the USA he adopted his new sponsers name as well (he nearly became Marlboro Churchill though this was considered to be too close to the family title)
 

Drago

Legendary Member
The marlboro, real name Michael Barrymore, man was in fact gay. In these modern, accepting times no one would bat an eyelid, but back then it would have earned him a kicking or worse.

To diguise his this he adopted a persona or uber manliness - skoking Marlboros, wearing cowboy boots and had, growing stubble, that so of thing. Marlboro were so taken in by the act they actually hired him to appear in the ads.

Eventually though he was found out and sacked. He was so short of money he turned vegetarian to save cash on his food bills, and changed his name to Ronald McDonald to avoid detection. McDonals heard of this and offered him a job in their adverts...
 
A noted artist in World War II was always trying to trick the art experts by leaving false artifacts in the pictures he faked.

It came to a head with his painting that was declared a lifelike representation of two pairs of British soldiers in battle.

He upset the art world when he pointed out the clues that showed they weren't two pairs of British soldiers, but were actually four jerries.

Ever since, pictures designed to imitate great masters are described as 'forgeries'.
 
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Drago

Legendary Member
Jerry cans get their name from their original purpose. In WWII captured hun personnel were brutally tortured by Thora Hird, head of rhe Salvation Army, in order to extract military secrets.

Hird was brutal, and by the time the typical session was over there was very lottle left of the victim, most of it liquid. Chief torturer, Brigadier Harry Secombe, used to soak the remains in a rag up and squeeze them off into purpose built coffin cans, which came to be known informally as 'Jerry Cans'.
 
A South Shields inventor perfected a miniaturised version of the jerry can, which made it far easier to transport, and he adopted the trade name for his invention as the family name to promote the product.

To this day his ancestors live comfortably of the royalties from his inventions, which enabled his great granddaughter Sarah Millican to pursue a pastime of standing on the stage.
 
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