Daniel Mainwaring
His first whodunnit novel, published in 1936, was The Doctor Died at Dusk. Written under an English-sounding and, in the future, often used nom de plume, Geoffrey Holmes, it featured journalist Robin Bishop. In his 1938 Then There Were Three, Mainwaring summoned up a new investigator, the milk-drinking, accordian-playing private detective Humphrey Campbell. Four years later, in The Street of Crying Women, he introduced Hispanic cop, Jose Manual Madero, a Zapotec Indian who knits socks and smokes cigarettes after flipping them in the air and catching them between his lips. Robin Bishop would go on to feature in The Man Who Murdered Himself (1936), The Man Who Didn't Exist (1937) and The Man Who Murdered Goliath (1938).
from Heartbreak and Vine: The Fate of Hardboiled Writers in Hollywood by Woody Haut (2002)

Important Stats
The James Bond film Licence To Kill would have been called Licence Revoked, only 85% of Americans tested didn't know what 'revoked' means. But in another survey, 93% did know what the Betty Ford Clinic was, and what it does.

[Sent to Harry Hill's TV Burp]

Hello,

My stapler looks like Phil Mitchell from Eastenders.

Here's a shot of the stapler duetting with my mobile phone in a stunning tableau-style tribute.

Do let me know if you'd like me to add ketchup.



Phil Mitchell?

Phil Mitchell...

"Every once in a while we get some of the beautifully colored paper clips," Lipps said. While the company doesn't purchase them, staffers "hold onto them for very special things."
http://www.coshoctontribune.com/news/stories/20031228/localnews/126040.html

Cheese In History: The Captions
#001

Several young men of the village joined the parmesans in the hills.

Haven't heard from me? Well, I switched off mail reception from cupcake.com a month or so ago because the spam was becoming intolerable, and I'm too cheap to pay for a decent spam filter. But I just switched it on and it's now downloading 85,497 messages. So, I'll be getting back to you, obviously.

At the age of 90 he was given a doctor's certificate of fitness to drive and promptly drove 500 miles to an origami conference.

Wrong map, buddy.

"Even though they sat in the wet seats, they were still in high spirits," said Tina Semon the Stand for Children chair. "It was an amazing accomplishment. It shows the American spirit."
Indiana's living flag

Foster, arguing with Daniels's earlier statement, said that the first thing people want is a gun, not Coke or Disney. Anthropologists studying New Guinea highlanders in the 1930s found that while the highlanders thought the phonograph interesting, what they wanted were guns. The second thing everyone wants is a chain saw, he added. (Later, someone in the audience suggested that the reason guns and chain saws were popular is because they are analogues of existing tools.)
(c) Evelyn C. Leeper

Cheese Blackout
"I'm still trying to restock," he said. "I am going to get up very early in the morning and go to New Jersey and get more cheese. We lost hundreds of pounds of cheese. Maybe about $50,000 worth."
New York Post

From the ever-entertaining British Library catalogue:

Must we introduce Monogamy? A study of polygamy on a mission problem in South Africa.
HELANDER. Gunnar
pp. 69. Shuter & Shooter: Pietermaritzburg, 1958. 8o.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Pizza products without tomato sauce, cheese or bread crust can still be sold as pizza under new government regulations, the U.S. Agriculture Department said Thursday.

Not Me
What a shame.

Great Moments in Customer Service #2
Me: You tried to deliver a package just now, but he's put an invalid waybill number on the card.
DHL: What's the route number?
Me: WN06...
DHL: ...Oh blimey, he ain't got a flipping phone. Fat lot of use that is.

Lovely Street Names #2 to #8

Acting on details provided by an informant, police have seized several dozen street-name signs at a local residence, which allegedly had been stolen by a teenager from street intersections during the past several months.

The purloined green-and-white signs were stolen from places across town, including Cricket Trail, High Rock Road, Great Ring Road, Chipmunk Trail, Chimney Swift Road, and Poverty Hollow Road, among dozens of others.

Newtown Bee (CT)

That's a matter of opinion

Almonds and pistachios are the only nuts mentioned in the Bible.

The dairy area is a gold mine if you love yogurt.

This must be a fertility cocktail:

IVF Martini

Into a shaker 2/3 filled with ice add a small (30 ml) shot of absinthe, a small shot of Kahlua, and a large (60 ml) shot of cold (but fresh) espresso (or filter coffee). Shake and strain into a Martini glass, and float a small shot of single cream on top. Garnish with three coffee beans.

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