🇬🇧 United Kingdom
Oddlets from United Kingdom.
Sir Roger Had Gotten So Stout
A slim, asthmatic, French-speaking heir to a Hampshire baronetcy was lost off Rio in 1854; twelve years later a butcher from Wagga Wagga arrived at Tilbury weighing eighteen stone, unable to speak one word of French, and the family's old valet accepted him.
The Newt in Her Mouth
Eleanor Ormerod, the Royal Agricultural Society's consulting entomologist, kept live insect specimens in her pockets and produced them, unannounced, at meetings with farmers.
The Baron in the Bath
On rainy mornings, a Georgian peer walked miles to the sea to swim while his liveried footman, on the peer's orders, rode dry in the empty carriage behind him.
Up to His Neck
He walked into the North Sea at night until the water reached his neck, and sang psalms until dawn.
The Man Who Counted the Posts
The man who single-handedly disciplined the English language could not walk past a post without touching it.
This Ain't an Egg-Shop
Who walks 130 miles through an Antarctic winter, in total darkness, to fetch a penguin egg?
The Man Who Counted the Hurdy-Gurdies
The man who designed the first computer spent a quarter of his working life fighting street musicians. Guess which project he finished.
The Hermit Who Kept Office Hours
What kind of hermit hires two armed guards, then hands out gin to two hundred children through the bars of his window?
The Man Who Refused to Lose a Thought
What does a Victorian mathematician invent when he refuses to lose a single thought to the dark?
My Name Is Shackleton
He emptied his pockets of gold into the snow, then told the meteorologist to keep the twelve-pound banjo.
The Half-Sovereign
What do you do when the greatest engineer of the Victorian age inhales a gold coin during a magic trick for his children?
Present But Not Voting
What kind of man spends sixty-three years perfecting the instructions for his own stuffed body?