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Latest items? Unedited? Fringe Report Uncut
What's What
Verdict: A cat called Lucy
Book (2005) - What's What - The Encyclopedia of Pointless Information
Before America invaded Iraq, it reduced the size of holes in Swiss Emmental cheese to 3/8 inch. Toothpicks are made from white birch, and it took 193,000 of them to create a 16ft model of the steamship Lusitania. Tsar Alexander considered trousers to be subversive. Most women cats in Britain are called Lucy. In Japanese, there's a word for trying out a sword on a chance passer-by. Women moths with large fathers prefer big lovers. Roller skates were first worn by a violin player who crashed into a mirror. Chocolate causes unease, resulting in high suicide rates - but fewer murders. Crocodile dung cures freckles. Just before the invasion of Iraq, the Swiss banned Santa Claus from their banks - perhaps in revenge for the down-sizing of their cheese-holes - and an American store sacked Mother Christmas for having breasts.
In the 100,000 words - a barrister speaking at judge's note-rate would take 17 hours to recite it - and 467 pages of What's What, there's nothing of use. It's an idler's book, a lavatory-time-passing book, with no purpose; no-one will be wiser or improved. It's therefore highly enjoyable.
This comes partly from the selection of material - around 2,000 topics filed alphabetically including Camp David, Etiquette, Milk, Mother Theresa, Pliny The Elder, and Sardine - and from the lazy pace of the writing. It has the feeling of being read aloud by a relaxed - and possibly depraved - story-teller.
William Hartston may or may not be depraved, and his writing is pert and elegant. It's also factual - a clear reporting style provides detail with crisp economy of words. There's a sense of what makes good gossip, and what is unexpected - there's not much in this book that is in any way predictable.
In his other life, William Hartston writes the Beachcomber newspaper column, a mix of comic imagination, the absurd and the factual - it's been going since the First World War. It's an essayist's column, and in What's What, the writer keeps a flavour of the Victorian literary magazine tradition: a combination of gifted prose - and being interested in pretty much everything.
Credits: Writer - William Hartston. Title - What's What - The Encyclopedia of Pointless Information. Publisher - Metro Publishing Ltd, 3 Bramber Court, 2 Bramber Road, London W14 9PB. First published in hardback 2005. ISBN 1 84358 130 2. (c) William Hartston 2005. Price £9.99. Design - www.envydesign.co.uk
END
John Park
reviewed 13 October 05 / London
Fringe Report (c) Fringe Report 2002-2012
www.fringereport.com
