Children's Miscellany: Volume 2

By Dominique Enright

The sequel to the best-selling Children's Miscellany. Packed full of even more, even smarter, even stranger facts, Children's Miscellany Volume Two includes Shakespearian insults, the longest place names in the world, five ways to de-smell your trainers and how to hypnotize a chicken!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michael O'Mara
• Release date: Jun 18, 2013
• ISBN: 9781780552194

Dominique Enright

Dominique Enright is a freelance writer and editor. Her previous works for Michael O'Mara Books include The Wicked Wit of Winston Churchill and The Wicked Wit of Jane Austen, and she is also the compiler and editor of selections from the verse of Burns, Keats, Kipling and Wordsworth. She lives in London with her husband, son and two daughters.

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NOTE TO READERS

The publisher and authors disclaim any liability for accidents or injuries that may occur as a result of information given in this book.

Every effort has been made to ensure that the information in this book is correct at the time of going to press. Nevertheless, some of the information is, by its very nature, anecdotal, changeable or disputable, and cannot therefore be assumed to be authoritative or exhaustive.

The book is, however, guaranteed to be thoroughly enjoyable.

First published in Great Britain in 2005 by Buster Books,

an imprint of Michael O’Mara Books Limited

9 Lion Yard

Tremadoc Road

London SW4 7NQ

Copyright © 2005 by Buster Books

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchase.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 978-1-905158-16-4 in hardback print format

ISBN: 978-1-78055-219-4 in Epub format

ISBN: 978-1-78055-220-0 in Mobipocket format

www.busterbooks.co.uk

Written by Dominique Enright

Contributions by Sarah Jones

Edited by Ellen Bailey

Interior illustrations by Niki Catlow

Cover illustration by Jane Massey

Designed by Buster Books

Grateful thanks to Toby Buchan; Athene Chanter; Peter Bailey and Daisy Coma

CONTENTS

Lifetime averages

Tricks for winning at conkers

Cryptids

Double-jointedness

Disgusting and dangerous plants

Cool transport

Things to dress up as when running a marathon

How to get rid – ‘hic’ – of hiccups

The afterlife

Funny bones

Yuor azamnig mnid

Wise words

Arch-enemies of superheroes

Morse code alphabet

Down the hatch

Things that have rained from the sky

What green means

Who is that relative?

Diseases you really don’t want to catch

The best way to make yourself dizzy

The origins of the salute

Seven modern world wonders

Seven natural world wonders

The five stages of sleep

Rubber bands

Chicken flight

How to hypnotize a chicken

Why boys are better than girls

Why girls are better than boys

What kind of maniac are you?

Early brain surgery

The silent alphabet

The Mozart effect

When should you sneeze?

Longest sneezing bout

Elbow

Computer bytes

What is air?

Pointless instructions

What to do if zombies attack

True or false?

What is a googol?

Cockney rhyming slang

Men who were women

Would you rather…

Vegetables which are in fact fruits

Nelson’s body parts

Spiders’ webs

Things to put in a time capsule

Very strange games

Dogs’ work

Things you wish you didn’t know about the Romans

Who is Doctor Who?

Capital cities you might not know

How to make a waterbomb

Secrets of snot

Egyptian gods and their animal forms

The Simpsons

Strawberries

Bits of brain

Language families

What to do in an earthquake

Ten books

Film facts

The amount of DNA you share with…

Clandestine Government Organizations

Light, sound and electricity in animals

The meaning of dreams

Strange swallowings

Things that have claws

Fire talk

The Great Fire of London

King Arthur’s knights of the round table

Names celebrities have given their children

Chocolate timeline

Funny facial hairstyles

Three cups trick

Items not allowed in your hand luggage

Lord Oxford’s fart

Extreme Earth

Skin deep

Mythical creatures

Riddles

Micro or nano?

Real-life pirates

What do toothless animals eat?

I invented it. No, I invented it

What yellow means

How to write a haiku

Excuse me

Incredible insects

Oldest playable musical instrument

Yy u r yy u b i c u r yy 4 me

Famous Nobel Prize Winners

Real alternatives to toilet paper

How many magpies?

Message not always fully understood

Farts

Siege engines

Strange remedies

Things that harm the planet

How to fly a helicopter

Things that shrink

Sporting losers

The worst place to…

The rhyming weather forecast

Things we use trees for

Shakespearian insults

Abbreviations

Famous real-life dogs

Famous real-life cats

Fortune finder

Vitamin deficiencies

Orange, purple and silver

Top five all-time worldwide box-office hits

The Chinese calendar

Phrenology

Causes of crop-circles: theories

Body appendages

Animals that can change colour

Space firsts

Are you in proportion?

Onomatopoeic words

The Great Pyramid of Khufu (or Cheops) at Giza

The Enigma machine

What red means

Who is that celebrity?

One hundred and one

Survivors of assassination attempts

An alchemist’s recipe for gold

‘Facts’ that are not true

Animals that metamorphose

Stack the blocks

What do you get when you cross…

Great warriors

How fast is the world spinning?

Silly signs

The Nato alphabet

Criminal masterminds?

Something fishy

I feel the need, the need for speed

How to turn your watch into a compass

Four-year-olds

The origins of text messaging

Emoticons

Real newspaper headlines

Cartoon cats

Cartoon dogs

Who’s the tallest

Reds, blues and greens

Ways to choose who is ‘it’

What does your handwriting say about you?

Postage stamps

Things that are fun to say

Like which animal?

Inventions that didn’t make it

The predictions of Nostradamus

Three terrifying people

Big birds

Fun houses

Hairy humans

Extreme ironing

Ten famous volcanoes

Which doorway?

A baby in Florida

Medieval torture instruments

Funny place names around the world

Richest women in the world

For your address book

How long do your cells live?

The twelve labours of Hercules

2B or not 2B?

Pigpen

Insect grub

Your birthday

Jaws

Days of the week

Absence excuse notes

Super powers

Statues

Vaccines in fruits

They say it’s going to rain if…

Opposites

Why you don’t want to mess with creepy crawlies

More ‘facts’ that are not true

City anagrams

Imposters

Highest-earning fictional characters

The signs of madness

Card trick

Say what you see

Hottest, coldest, driest, wettest

Your Brain

Locusts

The Olympic Games

What’s black and white and red all over?

Famous ghosts

Mixing colour

The fate of the children in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Finger fun

What teachers really mean

Why is the sky blue?

Everyday inventions

Countries with the most tractors per person

Annoying things teachers always say

Music genres

Names of the months

Seven spells from Harry Potter

How to fake a