Tennis's Strangest Matches

Tennis's Strangest Matches PDF Author: Peter Seddon
Publisher: Portico
ISBN: 1911042564
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 277

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Book Description
In this hugely entertaining collection of stories taken from over a hundred years of world tennis history, award-winning sports historian Peter Seddon has gathered together the most extraordinary events ever to occur on a tennis court. They include the Wimbledon final between the tea-drinking vicar and a convicted murderer, and the ‘Match of the Century’ between the ‘Women’s Libber’ and the ‘Male Chauvinist Pig’. There are matches played on board ship and on the wings of an airborne plane, a game played in full regimental dress, and meet the player who rated himself so highly he played an entire match while carrying someone ‘piggy-back’. The stories in this book are bizarre, fascinating, hilarious, and, most importantly, true. Revised, redesigned and updated for a new generation of tennis fanatics, this book is a unique look at the curiosities of an endlessly popular sport, revealing the ‘strawberries and cream’ game as you’ve never seen it before. Word count: 45,000

Tennis's Strangest Matches

Tennis's Strangest Matches PDF Author: Peter Seddon
Publisher: Portico
ISBN: 1911042564
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 277

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Book Description
In this hugely entertaining collection of stories taken from over a hundred years of world tennis history, award-winning sports historian Peter Seddon has gathered together the most extraordinary events ever to occur on a tennis court. They include the Wimbledon final between the tea-drinking vicar and a convicted murderer, and the ‘Match of the Century’ between the ‘Women’s Libber’ and the ‘Male Chauvinist Pig’. There are matches played on board ship and on the wings of an airborne plane, a game played in full regimental dress, and meet the player who rated himself so highly he played an entire match while carrying someone ‘piggy-back’. The stories in this book are bizarre, fascinating, hilarious, and, most importantly, true. Revised, redesigned and updated for a new generation of tennis fanatics, this book is a unique look at the curiosities of an endlessly popular sport, revealing the ‘strawberries and cream’ game as you’ve never seen it before. Word count: 45,000

The Ashes' Strangest Moments

The Ashes' Strangest Moments PDF Author: Mark Baldwin
Publisher: Franz Steiner Verlag
ISBN: 9781861058638
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 214

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Book Description
An entertaining collection of extraordinary but true tales from over a century of the Ashes, cricket's most famous international contest. The book contains episodes from all of the most famous series', including the controversial 1932-33 Bodyline series; England’s momentous victory in the coronation year of 1953; their dramatic last-minute win following a freak rainstorm that flooded the Oval in 1968; Beefy’s Ashes of 1981; and the plague of injuries that forced out all but four of England’s original sixteen-man squad in 1994. Great bowlers and batsmen alike are all featured, whether Aussie or Pom, from W.G. Grace to Shane Warne. This year's Ashes (2009) are to take place in England - the first test starts on July 8th in Cardiff (a new venue), while the second, third, fourth and fifth tests will be held at Lords, Edgbaston, Headingley and the Oval respectively. With the England team once again in good form, a solid captain in Andrew Strauss (which also leaves Kevin Pieterson to concentrate on his superb batting), and Australia not quite as strong since Glenn McGrath, Shane Warne and Justin Langer's retirement, it promises to be an exciting and closely-fought series. This summer the nation will once again take test cricket to its heart - all the more so since the collapse of Stanford's 20/20.

Theatre's Strangest Acts

Theatre's Strangest Acts PDF Author: Sheridan Morley
Publisher: Robson
ISBN: 1849941904
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 245

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Book Description
This enthralling collection of weird and wonderful tales from the world of theatre includes such unusual stories as the legendary ghost of Drury Lane, how an actor can exorcise the curse of Macbeth, and the well-known theatre manager who fried bacon and eggs in the Royal Box to feed her starving cast at the interval. If you have ever wondered whether what happens in the stalls is actually more dramatic than what happens on stage, which shows were so bad that they closed during the interval on the first night, or how the ‘green room’ was named, then 'Theatre’s Strangest Acts' is the book for you.

Television's Strangest Moments

Television's Strangest Moments PDF Author: Quentin Falk
Publisher: Portico
ISBN: 1849941831
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 395

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Book Description
Ever since John Logie Baird first publicly demonstrated this now all-pervasive medium in his small Soho laboratory, the history of television has been littered with remarkable but true tales of the unexpected. Ranging from bizarre stories of actors’ shenanigans to strange but true executive and marketing decisions, and covering over one hundred shows, series and episodes from both behind and in front of the camera in British and American television studios, 'Television's Strangest Moments' is the ultimate tome of TV trivia. Why did the quintessential English sleuth The Saint drive a Swedish car? What happened when Michael Aspel met Nora Batty on the set of the 1960s drama-documentary 'The War Game'? Why is the Halloween chiller 'Ghostwatch' still unofficially banned by the BBC? From live TV suicide to Ricky Martin's disastrous candid camera-style episode involving a young female fan and several cans of dog food, 'Television's Strangest Moments' will keep you hooked when there's nothing worth watching on the box.

Bridge's Strangest Hands

Bridge's Strangest Hands PDF Author: Andrew Ward
Publisher: Portico
ISBN: 1910232394
Category : Games & Activities
Languages : en
Pages : 194

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Book Description
This collection of oddities shows how Contract Bridge has played its part in embezzlement, murder, suicide, kidnapping, imprisonment and battle. The stories feature similar hands to those of bridge – the complete misfit, the two-way slam and men against women – while others, like ‘Thirteen Spades’ and ‘The Raspberry Jam Conundrum’, are closer to fantasy. Adaptations of the game, such as Nullo Bridge and Egdirb, are also included. Every hand in this book is a winner. Unless, of course, you were the player who was dealt thirteen hearts but bid diamonds by mistake.

Rock'n'Roll's Strangest Moments

Rock'n'Roll's Strangest Moments PDF Author: Mike Evans
Publisher: Batsford
ISBN: 1849941815
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
Rock music, since its pre-history in blues, country music and 40s and early 50s pop, through to the well-publicised excesses of touring bands of today, has left a legacy of thousands of weird and wonderful stories in its wake. We’ve all read about the Who’s Keith Moon driving a Rolls Royce into a hotel swimming pool, but far more bizarre tales of on-the-road mayhem have never been widely told. Likewise, Svengali-like managers have manipulated starstruck musicians since rock began, though hanging your well-known client from a third floor window was a less usual way of ensuring their loyalty. And just where was the stalled hotel lift in which all four Beatles, according to legend, were turned on to marijuana? There are the unsung heroes of rock – pioneering eccentrics who helped make the music what it is and ended up as mere footnotes in the history books. Men such as UK producer Joe Meek who created seminal classics from a bed-sit above a cleaners on the Holloway Road, and the New York DJ who originally coined the phrase ‘rock 'n’roll’ and died in alcoholic poverty. Not to mention the stories behind the stars: when Debbie Harry was a 'Playboy' Bunny, Paul Simon wrote ‘Homeward Bound’ on Widnes railway station in Lancashire, and the Gallagher brothers (so they claim) were petty thieves.

Shooting's Strangest Days

Shooting's Strangest Days PDF Author: Tom Quinn
Publisher: Portico
ISBN: 1910232483
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 243

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Book Description
Mad old colonels who took their trousers off before going elephant hunting, women poachers with terriers sewn into their underskirts, duck shooters chasing their quarry in helicopters - here they all in their vast and until now, long forgotten, eccentricity. Shooting's Strangest Days is a unique collection of stories about the mad, the bad and the truly dangerous to know from more than two hundred years of sporting shooting. Covering everything from delightfully dotty Royals - like George V, who always went shooting with a gun loader deliberately chosen because he looked exactly like the king - to obscure French chamois hunters, South American crocodile stranglers, Russian secret service beaters and suicidal Himalayan goat guides.

Poker's Strangest Hands

Poker's Strangest Hands PDF Author: Graham Sharpe
Publisher: Portico
ISBN: 1910232319
Category : Games & Activities
Languages : en
Pages : 222

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Book Description
Romping through crooked games, dodgy players, exotic venues and incredible hands, 'Poker's Strangest Hands' celebrates the strange history of Poker's most celebrated tournament, its World Championship event and the characters who have graced it with their presence, compiles some of the strangest things said about the game and fully records the details of the strangest Poker Year yet, 2006. The Poker world is divided between those who believe the game to be the most skilled contest ever devised, and those who believe that success in the game relies on pure luck. Sharpe's thorough excavations through long forgotten archives of the game have uncovered the first ever Poker cheat, who was literally making a spectacle of himself in 1829; has unearthed the game which reportedly lasted for 24 years; exposed the US President who gambled away the White House crockery; and discovered that a certain member of the Royal family was very much amused by Poker. Whatever your view this book will appeal to the novice player who can barely tell his flops from his nuts, and equally to the connoisseur of the subtleties of Poker who has developed and matured his or her skills over many years.

Royalty's Strangest Characters

Royalty's Strangest Characters PDF Author: Geoff Tibballs
Publisher: Batsford
ISBN: 1849941807
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 277

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Book Description
Recounting over 2,000 years of daft despots, raving rulers and potty potentates, this unique look at the world’s craziest kings and queens will leave you shocked, amazed – and often in fits of laughter. From the madness of ancient Rome, exemplified by the Emperor Caligula who wanted to appoint his horse to the consulate, we go on to meet Charles VI of France, convinced he was made of glass, Queen Juana of Spain, never separated from her late husband’s coffin, and King Otto of Bavaria, who tried to ward off hereditary insanity by shooting a peasant a day. Throughout history, royalty and scandal have gone hand-in-hand like a Prince of Wales and his mistress – witness the pocket-picking Farouk I of Egypt, Augustus II of Poland, who fathered an estimated 355 children, only one of whom was legitimate, and, more recently, Britain’s master of tact and diplomacy, Prince Philip. From kleptomania and incest to transvestism and even pigeon fancying, all these and many more colourful characters can be found in this revealing trawl of the world’s royal families.

Medicine's Strangest Cases

Medicine's Strangest Cases PDF Author: Michael O'Donnell
Publisher: Portico
ISBN: 1911042432
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 293

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Book Description
Medicine’s Strangest Cases is a choice prescription of weird and wonderful tales from the history of medicine, featuring the German doctor who fought a duel with a sausage, the Harley Street physician-turned-novelist who invented a disease – and its remedy – to keep his clients happy, and the quiet and cautious Swiss scientist who inadvertently unleashed LSD on the world. The stories in this book are bizarre, fascinating, hilarious, and, most importantly, true. Revised, redesigned and updated for 2016, this book is the perfect gift for medical students, clinicians, hypochondriacs and history fans. Laugh out loud and wince with sympathy with this rundown of the most bizarre medical cases ever. Word count: 45,000