Odd factoids

[roubaixtuesday]

Napoleon Bonaparte enforced the metric system on France not for scientific rigor or simplification, but rather because he hoped nobody would notice what a shortarse he was when measured in metres rather than feet ("pieds du roi", "Royal feet" was the traditional French measure).

 

[Drago]

France was founded as a Welsh prison colony. Fortunately prison rules banned close choral choir singing.

 

[PeteXXX]

Ffrance, as the Welsh call it, is their last remaining colony on mainland Europe.

 

[roubaixtuesday]

"French" chanteuse Vanessa Paradis is actually Welsh, and the love child of Shirley Bassey and Tom Jones.

She took her stage name from "Pain de Paradis" - "Bread of Heaven".

 

[PeteXXX]

Vanessa Paradis was married to the Singing Nun.

 

[raleighnut]

The 'Singing Nun' was actually a de-frocked vicar from Chapel En Le Frith

 

[bruce1530]

Professional Welshman, Tom Jones, was actually born in Devon. He signed for Wales in 1967, in a failed attempt to win the Welsh nomination for the Eurovision Song Contest. His song "I love leeks, I do, and daffodills too" was a minor hit in the Welsh charts, and can still regularly be heard in the amusement park in Barry Island.

 

[Drago]

Barry Island is named after Michael Barrymore, and is famed for its all night pool parties.

 

[PeteXXX]

Barry once dated Isla St clair.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Isla St Clair had a daughter named Eleanor, her nick name was Eclair

 

[roubaixtuesday]

Surgical procedures are known as operations because the Royal College of Barbersurgeons performed them as public entertainment at the Royal Opera House.

Ladies with extra stamina - "fat ladies" - were employed to sing arias for the long duration of the so called "operations" so as to mask the screams of the operatees.

 

[bruce1530]

An ancient Welsh law decrees that anyone called Barry should never pay for anything in Barry Island; it is all free, subsidised by the taxpayers.

Motorcyclist Barry Sheen spent his formative years on the fairground motorbike roundabout, at no cost.
Comedians Barry Cryer and Barry Chuckle had reserved spaces in "The Barry Cafe", a local greasy spoon.
Singers Barry Gibb, Barry Manilow and Barry White loved the Barry lifestyle so much that they moved there (at the taxpayer's expense) and perfomed nightly in the Barry Hippodrome.

 

[bruce1530]

Until the advent of the Suffragettes, no women were allowed on the Isle of Man.

 

[roubaixtuesday]

No cats are allowed on the Isle of Dogs.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

The Isle of Arran only allows you on if you’re wearing a chunky jumper knitted by your nanna