Behind the Music

Contrary to popular belief, the record label Motown was actually given its name as a contraction of "Motherfuckingtown". The news was revealed in footage of a little known interview with Berry Gordy which was recently unearthed.

The received view is that the title comes from the colloquial name for the label's original home-town Detroit, which combines "motor" and "town". However, Gordy clearly confirms this as a myth while expressing his amusement at the widespread assumption. Smokey Robinson is yet to comment on the revelation.

The news follows claims from music historians that EMI was originally derived as an abbreviated form of "Entertainment for Motherfucking Idiots" and that BMG was the shortened form of "Brilliant Motherfucking Grooves".

Bread of Life?

A group of scientists and historians is attempting to prove that Jesus was lactose intolerant. The controversial research program has set tongues wagging among religious scholars, who have traditionally devoted very little attention to the possible food allergies of the messiah.

The research has been undermined by a recent investigation, which uncovered details of the funding structure for the program. It turns out the team are being paid by a conglomeration of producers in the soya industry as part of a bid to force Christian churches to use vegan host products.

Past studies by food standards regulators found communion wafers in the UK to contain a variety of unsavoury ingredients including insect larvae, wombat extract and ground sparrow husk.

Some manufacturers defended their methods by pointing out the fact that the host is primarily a symbolic object and therefore cannot be judged on its literal content. A decision has yet to be reached about whether emblematic Christ constitutes a banned food product under either UK or EU law.

Egg on your Face?

Director Howard Hawks used to insist on his actors carrying around duck eggs in their underwear during particularly intense scenes. He believed that the technique would result in more considered, precise performances, but in actual fact they tended to make the actors feel extremely nervous and agitated. Lauren Bacall found the scenes especially stressful, since she had experienced a traumatic incident involving an aggressive mallard as a child.

The director eventually abandoned the practice, instead adopting a technique in which he would remove one item from the luggage of each actor, placing them around the set at arbitrary locations. If the actors accidentally noticed and looked at the items during the scene, they would be forced to read their lines while preparing a cooked breakfast for the entire crew.

Peanuts or just plain Nuts?

During the Cold War, Russian intelligence personnel mistakenly believed that Charles Schultz' Peanuts comic strip was actually being used as a communication medium with undercover U.S. agents operating in Europe. An entire department was created within the KGB to analyse the antics of Charlie Brown, Snoopy and Co. and several complex theories were developed regarding the coding methods thought to be employed.

Agents believed that the central character, Charlie Brown, signified the American nation, Snoopy the U.S. space program, Lucy van Pelt the pro-Communist movement in Cuba, Woodstock the American nuclear arsenal and Peppermint Patty was the Soviet Union itself.

The erroneous beliefs were the subject of much heated debate within the dedicated department throughout the 1950s and 60s until it was disbanded in 1974. However, it has been reported that rogue operatives who disagreed with closure of the unit continued studying the work of Schultz and ultimately attempted to communicate with the cartoonist himself, who, one particular day in the 1980s, was somewhat baffled to receive a crude drawing of a mouse wearing a ballgown in the mail.

After the Fact

People who eat cabbage at least once a month earn approximately 8% more than those who do not. That's just one of many startling revelations reviewed in a recent publication. Other statistical gems include the little known fact that people with long earlobes are 16 times more likely to have a failed marriage, and the amazing discovery that the bald are 27% more prone to accidents involving glue.