This compendium of utterly random facts, stories and miscellany is superficially intended to amuse the reader, in moments of repose, idleness, or extreme boredom. Hopefully, however, the mix is sufficiently diverse and the individual items sufficiently compelling so as to engage the mind as well as the eyes and hands, and sufficiently contrary as to inspire an occasional touch of pique. The ideal union of book and reader is one in which the latter becomes the bane of the ignorant, the envy of the less erudite, and the life of every party...