Category:
1970s

Power Tennis

Thank god that video games were invented, to spare us from this.

Posted By: Paul - Sun Dec 24, 2023 - Comments (0)
Category: Family, Games, Toys, 1970s

Pudsey Treacle Mines

Aug 1975: The Rev. Paul Needle attempted to convince 150 British children to embrace the Christian faith with the argument that if the Pudsey treacle mines don't really exist, then Jesus must.

The Rev. Paul Needle, the curate at the parish church, who organised the search, said: "When you realise that most people are prepared to half-believe in the Pudsey treacle mines, it gives a ray of hope that the much more reliable facts about Jesus may be considered and proved true.



The Guardian - Aug 21, 1975



Of course, the flaw in his argument was that the treacle mines are quite real, as explained by Don Gillan:

Natural treacle is formed over millenia in much the same way as petroleum. The whole area where Pudsey now stands was once a 'savannah' of sugar beet. Grazing dinosaurs cropped off the exposed greenery of the plants leaving the sugar rich beets lying untouched below the ground. Centuries upon centuries of this occurence led to the ground becoming saturated with monosaccharides as the decaying beets released their simple natural sugars. These filtered down through the ground until they encountered a barrier of impervious rock, where they pooled, and over the centuries under heat from the Earth's core below and pressure from the weight of the ground bearing down from on top were transformed into pure raw treacle, which was then absorbed into layers of porous rock.

Posted By: Alex - Sat Dec 23, 2023 - Comments (3)
Category: Religion, Candy, 1970s

Unauthorized Dwellings 31

Squatting on an abandoned island with no amenities, even one convenient to Manhattan, seems to offer some drawbacks. (Article is partial, but I figured we got the gist of it.)



Posted By: Paul - Wed Dec 20, 2023 - Comments (0)
Category: Oceans and Maritime Pursuits, Urban Life, Unauthorized Dwellings, 1970s

People Leave Ann Alone

Ladies Home Journal - May 1970

Posted By: Alex - Wed Dec 13, 2023 - Comments (2)
Category: Advertising, 1970s

Santa in the Slammer

Posted By: Paul - Tue Dec 12, 2023 - Comments (1)
Category: Holidays, Prisons, 1970s

Cup Final Seats

"A man who placed advertisements in a national newspaper offering 'Cup Final seats" for £15 sent applicants small canvas stools with 'Cup Final' written on them."

He probably thought he had figured out the perfect crime.

The Guardian - May 24, 1977

Posted By: Alex - Tue Nov 28, 2023 - Comments (0)
Category: Stupid Criminals, 1970s

A year of chocolate

When he died in 1976, John Bostock left money in his will so that every child under five in the village of Westgate-in-Weardale would be given a bar of chocolate once a week for a year.

The children in Eastgate-in-Weardale must have felt like they drew the short end of the straw.

Burton Daily Mail - Mar 5, 1976

Posted By: Alex - Mon Nov 27, 2023 - Comments (0)
Category: Death, Inheritance and Wills, Chocolate, 1970s

Constipation and Political Unrest

I haven't been able to figure out what the title of the article referenced below was, since I can't find archived copies of Blackwood's magazine from the 1970s. The hypothesis, "that a fundamental cause of the violence... in Irish politics may well be constipation," is strange. It might make one wonder about the role of constipation in other conflicts around the world.

The Melbourne Age - Sep 30, 1976

Posted By: Alex - Fri Nov 17, 2023 - Comments (2)
Category: Violence, War, Vegetables, 1970s

Competitive Hymn Singing

In 1972 a group of schoolboys set a world record for "non-stop hymn singing." They sang for 48 hours straight.

So what's the current record for hymn singing? I haven't been able to figure that out.

I found an article from Oct 2005 claiming a new record was set for singing for 22 hours, but since that wasn't even half the time of the 1972 record, that can't be right.

Pomona Progress Bulletin - Dec 30, 1972

Posted By: Alex - Thu Nov 16, 2023 - Comments (1)
Category: Music, World Records, 1970s

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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, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes.

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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.

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