Napoleon's Rabbit Retreat and Other Trivia

What's more likely: being killed by lightning or by an asteroid? Absurd as it may seem, death by asteroid is almost twice as likely.

     That's a quote from The Noticeably Stouter QI Book of General Ignorance by John Lloyd and John Mitchinson (Faber & Faber, 2009). For those not in the know, QI is a British television comedy panel game, from which this book is a spin-off. It is a vast compendium of fascinating, but useless information - and thus grist to my mill, and this blog.

Not Fit To Be a High-Class Train Robber

     As everybody knows, the American west in the nineteenth century was by no means a peaceful place. The Colt .45 was its defining symbol. Many people lived - and all too often died - by it. But they did accept a certain Code. One rule was that you didn't shoot women. Another was that you didn't shoot unarmed men, and for that reason, many men really did go unarmed. And that brings us to a  nasty character called  Red Buck Waightman.