News At A Glance #4

By ASH Smyth
April 2022

—    The Nelson Evening Mail, 1 February 1907

Dame Ethel Smyth had a dog called Marco.

There are four towns named Alma in Wisconsin.

Shantha Bandara has been sworn in as the State Minister of Organic Fertilizer Production, Promotion and Supply Regulation and Promotion of Paddy and Cereals, Organic Food, Vegetables, Fruits, Chilies, Salt and Potato Cultivation, Seed Production and High Tech Agriculture.

You can’t sing shanties if you’ve got no beard.

The way to train fleas is to make them dependent upon you for their food.  

Russians are brutal and medieval, but not stupid.

Book-agents beat their wives.

William Langley was the mail man in Port Stanley.

Lawrence of Arabia did not like rivers.

In the Republic of Cameroon Guinness is thought to be an aphrodisiac.

Moondog released Moondog 13 years after Moondog.

Song sparrows speak nostalgically of the berries in Ethiopia.

Sometimes bare facts feel unpatriotic.