Wiki-Wiki-Whack!

[Si Hunt]

In gaps at work, I frequently trawl Wikipedia and uncover bizarre and unlikely facts. For a while I've been meaning to start a thread to share some of them.

For example, I discovered a while ago than John Inman (who sadly died this morning) was a cousin of Josaphene Tewson, she of "Keeping Up Appearances" fame.

Here's another comedy-related one: did you know that from time to time Anna Karen (who played Olive in "On the Buses") is employed by Transport for London as a 'mystery traveller' conducting anonymous surveys on buses regarding cleanliness and the quality of driving! Obscure!

Feel free to add your weird facts, related to anything, here - from Wiki or elsewhere.

Si.

[Pip Madeley]

Here's another comedy-related one: did you know that from time to time Anna Karen (who played Olive in "On the Buses") is employed by Transport for London as a 'mystery traveller' conducting anonymous surveys on buses regarding cleanliness and the quality of driving! Obscure!

She used to be a stripper before she starred in the show.

[Milky Tears]

She also had cracking spaniels!

[Matthew T]

Thanks to some twenty years worth of nightly installments of Countdown as well as his work on the Yorkshire magazine programme Calendar and various other television projects, at the time of his death Richard Whiteley was believed to have clocked-up more hours on British television screens - and more than 10,000 appearances - than anyone else alive, apart from Carole Hersee, the young girl who appeared on the BBC's iconic Test Card F.

[WhiteCrow]

Sorry - this has to be the ultimate wiki fact ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherie_Booth

Cherie Blair is the first cousin four times removed of the American actor John Wilkes Booth who assassinated Abraham Lincoln

Makes you wonder if the Secret Service get twitchy when the Blairs Meet the Bushes ...

[Dirk Gently]

Makes you wonder if the Secret Service get twitchy when the Blairs Meet the Bushes ...

Which way though? Do they get twitchy that will shoot Bush or that she won't?

[Alex]

I like the way some prankster's have played around with Jim Davidson's page, especially the picture.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?...ldid=115084140

Jim Davidson OBE, (born Cameron James Davidson on 13 December 1953) is a popular but controversial English comedian, TV presenter and actor. A recovering alcoholic who has been married four times, he has been made an officer of the Order of the British Empire for his work entertaining British soldiers in conflict zones. He was voted in at number 9 in Britain's Favourite Racists poll of 2006.

Edit: From this page on the Commodore Amiga.

Actor Dick Van Dyke is a self-described "rabid" user of the Amiga.

Edit Again: The first paragraph from this one on Duncan Norvelle is very rude, but very funny too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duncan_Norvelle

[Matthew T]

My favourite Wikipedia edits that I've spotted are that Su Pollard had been mauled to death by a baboon, and that Michelle McManus had died of a heart attack after straining too hard on the toilet!

[Paul Monk]

Surely both those facts are true though.

[Si Hunt]

Quiet you.

Si.

[Si Hunt]

In May 1997 Barbie manufacturer Mattel introduced Share a Smile Becky, a doll in a pink wheelchair. Kjersti Johnson, a 17-year-old high school student in Tacoma, Washington with cerebral palsy, pointed out that the doll would not fit into the elevator of Barbie's $100 Dream House. Mattel announced that it would redesign the house in the future to accommodate the doll.

My favourite was "Black Barbie" introduced in 1980.

Si.

[Si Hunt]

Marnie Reece-Wilmore (Debbie Martin in "Neighbours") appeared in a TV Movie with her "Neighbours" "sister" Rebecca Ritters in 2003 and they had to kiss!

Si.

[Dirk Gently]

Sounds like a nice clip to watch, I wonder if Wayne knows of this Friel-esque escapade?

[sugartongs]

Johnny Logan (born on 13 May 1954 in Frankston near Melbourne, Australia, real name Se?n Patrick Michael Sherrard)

And all these years I thought he was Irish! Thank you QI!

[WhiteCrow]

I can't find the exact link, but we were doing some research for homework, and we came across this amusing statement on amphibians,

Sperm is not amphibian

So you've been told!!!

[sugartongs]

Does anyone speak Portugese?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Por_Ond...Stephen_Fry%3F

[Andrew Curnow]

We often use Wiki at work - Electroless Nickel Plate, that was one we looked up, and today TVO (Tractor Vapourising Oil). Sometimes the laughter just never ends at our place...

[Dave Lewis]

Wikipedia has never been the same since some officious saddos removed the reference to Hartnell turning up on the set of some Troughton story or other and behaving rather peculiarly. I have never believed a word on the site ever since.

[sugartongs]

Peter Serafinowicz

He is married to Smack the Pony, Coupling and Green Wing actress Sarah Alexander.[6] Their first son was born in April 2007. Peter's brother James is a writer and director,[7] and can be seen wearing Peter's Liverpool Blue Coat School uniform at the beginning and end of each episode of the first series of Look Around You. His sister is married to the 'Father Ted', 'Black Books' and 'Big Train' writer Graham Linehan.

[sugartongs]

The last people to be executed in England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales were all in their 20s.

The last execution to take place in Wales was of murderer Vivian Teed, 24, hanged in Swansea on 6 May 1958.

The last execution in Northern Ireland was of Robert McGladdery, 25, on 20 December 1961 in Crumlin Road Gaol, Belfast, for the murder of Pearl Gamble.

The last execution in Scotland was of 21 year old Henry John Burnett on 15 August 1963 in Craiginches Prison, Aberdeen, for the murder of seaman Thomas Guyan.

On 13 August 1964 at 9 a.m. Peter Anthony Allen, at Walton Prison in Liverpool, and Gwynne Owen Evans, at Strangeways Prison in Manchester, were each executed for the murder of John Alan West on 7 April that year. These were the last executions in England and in the United Kingdom.

The last woman to be executed in England was Ruth Ellis on 13 July 1955.

However, interestingly:

Ruth appeared, but was uncredited, in the film Lady Godiva Rides Again, which starred Dennis Price and Kay Kendal, and her friend Diana Dors

and it describes Ruth Ellis as being a 'hostess' at a club and being acquainted with Stephen Ward. Now that name may sound familiar to you...

There is a claim that Ellis was "run" by Stephen Ward, a decade before his name became public in the Profumo affair, a British public scandal which profoundly affected the ruling Conservative Party government.

Fascinating.