February 2024
February 9, 2024
Instant “Boot-look”
1971 Sears Fall and Winter Catalog
Posted By: Alex - Fri Feb 09, 2024 -
Comments (1)
Category: Fashion, 1970s
Amazons of the Year 2000
THE DAILY SENTINEL of Colorado predicts in 1950 that all the women of the year 2000 will be giants.
Posted By: Paul - Fri Feb 09, 2024 -
Comments (3)
Category: Excess, Overkill, Hyperbole and Too Much Is Not Enough, 1950s, Women, Twenty-first Century
February 8, 2024
Spelling-Challenged Bank Robber
As far as I can tell, this guy was never caught. On the other hand, it doesn't sound like his efforts got him much money.
Miami Herald - Oct 11, 1980
Posted By: Alex - Thu Feb 08, 2024 -
Comments (3)
Category: Stupid Criminals, 1980s
Funeral March on the Death of a Parrot
Read about the eccentric, parrot-loving composer Charles-Valentin Alkan (and his equally eccentric son) here.
Posted By: Paul - Thu Feb 08, 2024 -
Comments (1)
Category: Animals, Eccentrics, Music, Europe, Nineteenth Century
February 7, 2024
Lollipop Ladies Lit Up
Des Moines Register - Nov 23, 1969
Daily Mirror - Oct 10, 1969
click to enlarge
Posted By: Alex - Wed Feb 07, 2024 -
Comments (0)
Category: Fashion, 1960s
Follies of the Madmen #587
We have seen instances of this theme before: a giant nuclear mushroom cloud does not indicate death and destruction, but rather it shows your product is powerful.
Posted By: Paul - Wed Feb 07, 2024 -
Comments (0)
Category: Death, Music, Advertising, Atomic Power and Other Nuclear Matters, 1960s, Weapons
February 6, 2024
Wrong turn leads into coal mine
That's a serious wrong turn!I had to look up the meaning of a "pit prop." It's a post that holds up the roof of a coal mine.
Brantford Expositor - Jan 8, 1963
I asked Microsoft's AI image creator to illustrate the news story. After a few false starts, this is what it came up with. Not too bad.
Posted By: Alex - Tue Feb 06, 2024 -
Comments (2)
Category: Confusion, Misunderstanding, and Incomprehension, 1960s, Australia, Cars
Easter Lifting and Heaving
Easter is early this year: March 31st. So you'd better bone up quick on the old practice of lifting strangers up in chairs.According to Hone, the practice was common in Lancashire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire and other parts of England. Groups of people would gather together in the street and physically lift those they came across into the air, expecting a financial reward in return. Hone describes the practice as differing slightly in different parts of the country:
In some parts the person is laid horizontally, in others placed in a sitting position on the bearers’ hands. Usually, when the lifting or heaving is within doors, a chair is produced, but in all cases the ceremony is incomplete without three distinct elevations. (SCM 03706, p. 426)
In Warwickshire, Easter Monday and Easter Tuesday were known as ‘heaving-day‘, because on the Monday it was the tradition for men to ‘heave and kiss the women’ and on the Tuesday for the women to do the same to the men. Hone viewed the practice as, ‘an absurd performance of the resurrection’ derived from the Catholic church.
Posted By: Paul - Tue Feb 06, 2024 -
Comments (3)
Category: Furniture, Holidays, Easter, Regionalism, Foreign Customs, United Kingdom
February 5, 2024
Promoting English Wine
Aug 1985: Four British ex-servicemen, all missing both their legs, embarked on a tour of France to promote English wines. Their motto: "You don't have to be legless to enjoy English wine."Some explanation may be needed for Americans. 'Legless' is British slang for 'very drunk.'
London Daily Telegraph - Aug 10, 1985
Posted By: Alex - Mon Feb 05, 2024 -
Comments (3)
Category: Inebriation and Intoxicants, 1980s, United Kingdom, Legs
Mabel the Lush
The artist.
Posted By: Paul - Mon Feb 05, 2024 -
Comments (0)
Category: Addictions, Alcohol, Music, 1940s
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| Alex Boese Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction books such as Elephants on Acid. Paul Di Filippo Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1. Chuck Shepherd Chuck is the purveyor of News of the Weird, the syndicated column which for decades has set the gold-standard for reporting on oddities and the bizarre. Our banner was drawn by the legendary underground cartoonist Rick Altergott. Contact Us |
