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DON'T YOU BELIEVE IT!: Some things everybody knows that actually Ain't So

Price: £9.95
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ISBN 13: 
978-0-9554431-0-7
Number of pages: 
205
First published: 
2007
This edition: 
2007
Blurb: 

Drawn from the Best Sources for the AMUSEMENT AND INSTRUCTION of the general Public by John Radford And illustrated by Donald Rooum -- from the Frontispiece

'WE ARE NOT AMUSED' is perhaps the only thing everyone knows Queen Victoria said. But did she? If so, when and why? And was she never amused?

NOSTRADAMUS PREDICTED THE FUTURE. Very many people, if not 'everybody', believe this. But is it true? Who was Nostradamus and what did he actually do?

WE ONLY USE TEN PER CENT OF OUR BRAINS. This claim is found all over the place, supposedly supported by 'recent research', or Einstein, or 'experts'. Is there any truth in it? How did it arise?

THE WRIGHT BROTHERS MADE THE FIRST HEAVIER-THAN-AIR FLYING MACHINE. Most people surely would agree. In fact there were others, on whose work the brothers successfully built.

Many ideas are assumed to be true, when the actual facts are rather different, or in some cases completely otherwise. John Radford explores, and Donald Rooum illustrates, a host of popular beliefs, all held by very many people, if not literally 'everybody'. Some have an element of truth, some are distorted versions of the truth, some completely false.

 

Contents: 

Preface -- John Radford, London, 2006

1. KING ALFRED burnt the cakes
2. ANARCHY means disorganized chaos
3. KING ARTHUR and his knights lived in castles and fought with lance and battle-axe
4. THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO was won on the playing fields of Eton
5. BLONDIN crossed Niagara Falls on a tightrope
6. BREAKFAST, in England, should be eaten three times a day
7. CHILD PRODIGIES usually come to no good end
8. COLUMBUS discovered America
9. ALEISTER CROWLEY was the wickedest man in the world
10. THE CUTTY SARK was the fastest sailing ship ever built
11. CHARLES DARWIN invented the idea of evolution
12. DICK TURPIN rode to York on Black Bess
13. SIR FRANCIS DRAKE defeated the Spanish Armada
14. DRUIDS built Stonehenge
15. ENGLISH BEER should be drunk warm
16. ESKIMOS have innumerable words for 'snow'
17. A FLAT EARTH was believed in
18. GEORGE WASHINGTON cut down his father's cherry tree
19. GOUT results from too much port
20. HOT CROSS BUNS are hot
21. THE IRISH POTATO FAMINE was deliberately caused
22. JESUS wore a beard
23. JOKES can all be reduced to just three
24. KILTS are worn by Scotsmen, and always have been
25. LONDONERS talk in rhyming slang, eat jellied eels, and wear pearl buttons
26. LORDS OF THE MANOR had the right to take any new bride into their own bed
27. COMMON LAW creates a marriage when two people live together
28. MATHEMATICS trains the mind
29. MEDIAEVAL WARFARE was fought by knights on horseback
30. MOTHERING SUNDAY is Mother's Day
31. NERO fiddled while Rome burned
32. NOSTRADAMUS predicted the future
33. OSTRICHES bury their heads in the sand (and lemmings commit mass suicide)
34. PIRATES buried their treasure
35. PRACTICE makes perfect
36. PROFESSORS are absent-minded
37. PSYCHIATRISTS are all 'shrinks'
38. QUEEN VICTORIA was not amused
39. RUGBY FOOTBALL was invented when William Webb Ellis ran with the ball
40. SANDWICHES were invented by the 4th Earl when gambling
41. SCHIZOPHRENIA means a 'split personality'
42. SEVEN INTELLIGENCES are what we all really have
43. SHERLOCK HOLMES lived at 221B Baker Street
44. SINGLE-HANDED ROUND THE WORLD was first achieved by Sir Francis Chichester
45. SLAVERY was a largely British trade
46. SPARE THE ROD and spoil the child
47. TEN PER CENT OF THE BRAIN is all we use
48. THE TITANIC was considered unsinkable
49. TOBACCO was introduced by Sir Walter Raleigh
50. TOMBS are equipped with ancient booby traps
51. UNIVERSITIES were originally religious foundations
52. THE WELSH are peculiarly musical
53. WITCHES are old women who cast evil spells
54. THE WRIGHT BROTHERS made the first heavier-than-air flying machines
55. YOU CANNOT PROVE A NEGATIVE
56. TWENTY THINGS THEY NEVER SAID

Biographical note(s): 

John Radford, Emeritus Professor of Psychology at the University of East London, has led a quiet life as (mostly) an academic. He built up perhaps the largest Department of Psychology in the UK, and introduced Psychology into the GCE A-level. It is now one of the most popular subjects. He has researched and written on many subjects, including child prodigies, higher education, sex and gender differences, the psychology of religion, intelligence and personality, and Sherlock Holmes. He is a fellow and Honorary Life Member of the British Psychological Society, a Chartered Pschologist, and a Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute. He is skeptical by nature, keen on discovering the facts rather than relying on myths, authorities and popular prejudices.

Donald Rooum had five minutes of fame in 1963, when he was arrested, charged with carrying a bit of brick to be used as an offensive weapon at a demonstration, and aquitted because the arresting officer, a Detective Sergeant, made a stupid mistake in planting the evidence. The case discredited the long-held magistrates' rule-of-thumb, that police evidence may be taken as true. At the time Donald was doing political cartoons for Peace News and The Spectator. These days he does a couple of regular strip cartoons, 'Wildcat' in Freedom since 1980, and 'Sprite' in The Skeptic since 1987. An amateur naturalist, he was awarded a first-class degree in Life Sciences by the Open University at the age of 51, and elected a Chartered Biologist and Member of the Institute of Biology at the age of 76.