Tales Of The Unexpected: Did I Know That?

By Barney Hegarty

Tales of the Unexpected - Did I Know That? is a collection of facts, laws, origins of sayings and incredible truths. They all come from emails sent to the author from all over the world and in one way or another caused him to laugh out loud when he received them.

To be precise, the type of laughter brought about by these is more of wonder and fascination with the world around us than of rib-tickled mirth, so it’s probably more accurate to describe them as bringing on snorts of wry pleasure than out-loud guffaws. But that shouldn‘t alter anything. This is a fascinating book that was a joy to compile with interested readers in mind.

All the stories and facts in here are understood to be true, so you can become an instant centre of fascination with your friends, family and workmates as you regale them with these fantastic facts. In fact, it will be a matter of eternal wonder if you don’t get promoted, better looking AND more popular as a direct result of buying and reading this book.

Have you ever wondered about the relationship between the Space Shuttle and a horse’s backside?

Have you tried moving your leg in a clockwise direction and drawing a ‘6’ at the same time?
Do you know where a Piggy Bank comes from? Where ‘Dirt Poor’, ‘Saved by the bell’ or “Getting fired” come from? Or what a ‘tittle’ is?

All the answers are in here. Some you may already astonish yourself by knowing; the rest sound familiar but have been selected because they are just a bit different from the usual ones that get trotted out.

The book is as usual short and sweet so it can be randomly read and enjoyed at your convenience during a drink, a meal or a journey. It will certainly beat gazing dopily at your phone hoping for a torrent of friendly texts. And all for less than the price of a drink.

Enjoy it. Fill your boots and allow yourself to laugh at some of these facts simply because it’s good for you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Barney Hegarty
• Release date: Mar 18, 2014
• ISBN: 9781910291191

Barney Hegarty

Barney Hegarty is a pen name for Steve Corkhill.Born in Liverpool, UK, Steve was named by a public vote in the bar of a pub in North Wales. After an enjoyable education where his results reflected his passion and occasional aptitude for team sports, he started his working life training to be an accountant.His interest in audits soon waned and he changed jobs, only to be made redundant while he was on holiday. So he followed his childhood dream, trained as a schoolmaster and moved into a position in the glorious World Heritage City of Bath, UK. After a fairly rapid rise through the ranks he took his first major career gamble and accepted a 50% pay cut and an 85% reduction in holidays to move into the developing personal computing industry.It worked. It was quickly evident that there was an enormous gap between the IT specialists and the desires of their customers to be have something both useful and useable. Steve’s particular skills and values were well suited to fill the role of intermediary, specialising in making IT work for businesses across all sorts of sectors. It meant learning every day of his life, which is one of his core principles.At a birthday party one day, he realised that his commitment to clients meant that he was missing out on his children growing up, so took another career gamble. He resigned and went self-employed.So FlatBear was born and with it the plan to develop an internet based publishing arm in parallel with his day to day consulting activities. There followed years of study, investigation, wistful dreaming and, frankly, ennui. The consulting was working well and the indie publishing dream slipped out of sight.He was shocked into action by a series of events in 2013 and 2014 and the result was a series of books under the pen-name of Barney Hegarty, written mainly to test and learn the process of publishing. That established an infrastructure and broke the “one day” barrier.Receiving his very first payment of literally pennies for making international sales changed the game. He was hooked again.He finally wrote and published “Reboot For The Worn Out Professional”, a book he had been planning for years in response to seeing colleagues suffering burnout and stress in their high intensity jobs and of course as a result of his own recent challenges.One day it turned out that he had a heart defect. He went through the experience of open heart surgery, where a barrow-load of beliefs and presumptions were first shattered then realigned. The novel “How To Recover From Open Heart Surgery” is the direct result.At the time of writing he still lives in Bath. It has been easier to base himself there and travel the world than to continually move around after the work. Apart from that, it’s beautiful.Steve is still married to Betsan, the woman he first met in 1980.

Book preview

Tales of the Unexpected - Did I know that?

By Barney Hegarty

Copyright Barney Hegarty 2014 all rights reserved

Published by FlatBear Publishing

PO Box 3679, Bath, UK. BA2 4WS

ISBN 978-1-910291-19-1

Smashwords Edition

Part of the Laugh Out Loud emails series

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This e-book is licensed for your enjoyment. If you feel a need to share this book with one other person, you may do so provided the book remains in its complete original form. Outside that limit, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it then please return to your favourite e-book retailer and buy a full copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

Table of Contents

Instant Laughs

New Uses for Vodka

Lefties

2% or 98%?

Your Mobile

Letter from the Post Office

Forest Fire and Flippers

Little Known Factoids

Predictive Text

THAT’S where it comes from

This looks weird

Great Signs

Did you know this?

Animals

Give Us a Fact

Really?

Cannon Balls

International Laws

Things you didn’t know you didn’t know

Body Statistics

The Space Shuttle and the Horse’s Ass

It is Impossible

More Bizarre Laws

A Load of Manure

Samples from Other Books in this Series

About the Author

Welcome

Tales of the Unexpected - Did I know that? is a collection of facts, laws, origins of sayings and incredible truths. They all come from emails sent to the author from all over the world and in one way or another caused him to laugh out loud when he received them.

To be precise, the type of laughter brought about by these is more of wonder and fascination with the world around us than of rib-tickled mirth, so it’s probably more accurate to describe them as bringing on snorts of wry pleasure than out-loud guffaws. But that shouldn‘t alter anything. This is a fascinating book that was a joy to compile with interested readers in mind.

All the stories and facts in here are understood to be true, so you can become an instant centre of fascination with your friends, family and workmates as you regale them with these fantastic facts. In fact, it will be a matter of eternal wonder if you don’t get promoted, better looking AND more popular as a direct result of reading this book.

Have you ever wondered about the relationship between the Space Shuttle and a horse’s backside?

Have you tried moving your leg in a clockwise direction and drawing a ‘6’ at the same time?

Do you know where a Piggy Bank comes from? Where ‘Dirt Poor’, ‘Saved by the bell’ or Getting fired come from? Or what a ‘tittle’ is?

All the answers are in here. Some you may already astonish yourself by knowing; the rest sound familiar but have been selected because they are just a bit different from the usual ones that get trotted out.

The book is as usual short and sweet so it can be randomly read and enjoyed at your convenience during a drink, a meal or a journey. It will certainly beat gazing dopily at your phone hoping for a torrent of friendly texts. And all for less than the price of a drink.

Enjoy it. Fill your boots and allow yourself