Astonisher No.67: Actress Lesley Manville's broad range has always impressed us especially in Mike Leigh films. For some reason we were surprised (if not astonished) that when still at the drama school Italia Conti she declined an offer to join Hot Gossip.
su 27 Apr 2025
Astonisher No.66: Pub bands in the 1960s had to have a fancy mains plug that could be configured two or three round or square pin because you didn't know what mains would be in the village hall. So it surprised us that the present 13 amp plug was designed in the 1940s by Dame Caroline Haslett. Other nations might observe UK plugs seem enormous to them but ours contain a fuse usually 13amp ... other values are available.
AstonisherNo.64: We haven't got an Astonisher at the moment ... astonishing eh?
tu 5 Nov 2024
AstonisherNo.63: Clare Skinner who plays the mother in Outnumbered younger and with a boy's haircut is unrecognisable in Mike Leigh's Life Is Sweet.
th 8 Aug 2024
AstonisherNo.62: Surely not surprising that Reform party MP Lee Anderson was deputy chairman for the Conservatives but more unlikely that he was also a Labour councillor ... not at the same time though ...
th 23 May 2024
AstonisherNo.61: A chum with Canadian antecedents finds Toronto Argonauts an unlikely name for a Canadian football team (it's like American football but different). It seems more likely when you know they were founded in 1873 by the Argonaut Rowing Club.
sa 6 Apr 2024
Astonisher No.60: When the BBFC banned The Wild One until the late 1960s it meant UK cinema audiences didn't get to see it with a certificate something like this. Nowadays the BBFC classifies not censors but we were still astonished to discover that since 2022 it's chair is Natasha Kaplinsky, hear her now on ScreenshotTrying to chair a meeting and drive my son to hockey.
su 28 Jan 2024
Astonisher No.59: Dodgy Robert Maxwell was Labour MP for Buckingham 1964-1970 becoming chair of the Refreshment Committee in 1967. He resigned the post in 1969 after selling off the wine cellar ... not the only chancer in government eh?
th 12 Oct 2023
Astonisher No.58: Comedian and actor Lenny Henry since 2018 is Dr Lenny Henry. He did it the hard way with six years to get a BA in English from the Open University, then a MA followed by a PhD in Media Arts from Royal Holloway University of London.
th 3 Aug 2023
Astonisher No.57: Born in Eltham UK comedian Bob Hope (we've always liked the Road films) from 1947 to 1962 was a part owner of american football team the Los Angeles Rams.
th 30 Mar 2023
Astonisher No.56: Finland shares an 800+ miles border with Russia and since achieving independence in 1917 their army has continuously included conscription.
mo 3 Oct 2022
Astonisher No.55: In 1939 Hattie McDaniel played Mammy in Gone with the Wind and for her performance was the first African American to win an Oscar. She couldn't attend the film's premiere in Atlanta Georgia because the cinema was whites only.
tu 19 Apr 2022
Astonisher No.53: For six years as an MP and 19 months as Chancellor Rishi Sunak held a USA green card requiring a declaration that his primary residence was in the USA ... which hopefully it isn't so he fibbed.
fr 4 Feb 2022
Astonisher No.52: If you're the sort of weirdo who stays to read the film credits you would have met dolly grip, best boy and foley artist. We knew that foley artist was something to do with sound but not that it's named after Jack Foley.
fr 12 Nov 2021
Astonisher No.51: ♫ Bad Penny Blues was an unlikely jazz hit single in the UK and Humphrey Littleton's only chart success. He didn't like the very up front piano which was the post production of unlikely engineer on the session Joe Meek.
mo 15 Aug 2020
Astonisher No.54: Of the some 195 nations on the planet only 17 have police who routinely patrol without a firearm.
th 23 Jul 2020
Astonisher No.50: Legal tender for twenty pence pieces is £10 ... that's 50 coins ...
th 30 Apr 2020
Astonisher No.49: Some people are astonished that women have gonads too.
we 8 Jan 2020
Astonisher No.48: We've always thought the music over the Soprano's opening credits is Fun Loving Criminals, turns out it's British band the Alabama 3. ♫
tu 20 Aug 2019
AstonisherNo.47: Painfully astonishing that in the UK one in four who die in a car crash aren't wearing a seat belt. It's primarily young men in the early hours ...
su 2 Jun 2019
AstonisherNo.46: In this year's Reith Lectures Lord Jonathan Sumption late of the supreme court states the RSPB has a larger membership than all three major political parties combined (round about 16:28) ... actually probably not that astonishing.
we 6 Feb 2019
AstonisherNo.45: When Johnny Cash gave an unlikely concert at San Quentin state prison fellow country singer MerleI'm an Okie from Muskogee Haggard was in the audience serving two and a half years for burglary and an attempted jail break. Equally unlikely (though perhaps not in the USA) Haggard was pardoned in 1972 by then governor of California Ronald Reagan.
tu 4 Dec 2018
AstonisherNo.44: Although Felix Baumgartner's jump in 2012 from 24 miles not surprisingly set five world records he did not break Joseph Kittinger's 1960 longest free fall record. In 2014 Google hacker Alan Eustace jumped from 25.7 miles setting new records.
tu 14 Aug 2018
Astonisher No.43:Gregg Allman was married to Cher?! He was married seven times so presumably her turn had to come round at some point.
we 9 May 2018
Astonisher No.42: Ricky Valance was the first Welshman to have a UK number one record, very easy to get him confused (like this bloke) with Richie Valens who died in the Buddy Holly plane crash.
tu 2 Jan 2018
Astonisher No.41: During June 1756 the nine year old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart played lunchtimes in the Swan and Harp Tavern, London for the drinkers.
th 14 Sep 2017
Astonisher No.40: In 2010 retiring governor of New Mexico Bill Richardson declined to pardon Billy the Kid ... we know but it's true.
tu 24 Jan 2017
Astonisher No.39: du Maurier cigarettes (you can still get them in Canada and the West Indies) were not named after author Daphne du Maurier (Rebecca, Jamaica Inn, The Birds and Don't Look Now) but her actor father Gerald. In 1936 she married Major (later Lieutenant General) Frederick Boy Browning who founded the paratroopers and she is thought to have chosen the maroon colour for their berets.
mo 7 Nov 2016
Astonisher No.38: The Irish saint Kevin (Anglicised from the Irish Cóemgen) of Glendalough (498-681) is the patron saint of Dublin and blackbirds ... seems an unlikely combination.
tu 19 Jul 2016
Astonisher No.37:Sir Arthur Conan Doyle the creator of Sherlock Holmes played ten first class matches for the MCC and in goal for Portsmouth ... mind you this was an amateur side that disbanded two years before the present league team was founded in 1898.
fr 11 Jul 2014
Astonisher No.36: The Bank of England got its first telephone in 1902 but was still buying quill pens in 1907.
mo 12 May 2014
Astonisher No.35: Singer Mama Cass Elliot died in her sleep (not choking on a ham sandwich) and in the same bedroom in which Who drummer Keith Moon died four years later. The bedroom was in a flat Moon rented at the time from singer Harry Nilsson. Nilsson subsequently sold the flat to Pete Townsend. ♫
t0u 11 Mar 2014
Astonisher No.34: Canadian and retired professional wrestler Billy Two Rivers (we can remember him war dancing on telly in the 1960s) is the father of British fashion designer Wayne Hemingway.
we 15 Jan 2014
Astonisher No.33: Legend has it that when the Derby (Britain's richest horse race) was conceived at a 1779 party a coin was tossed to decide whether the race should be named after the party's host the 12th Earl of Derby or Sir Charles Bunbury (wasn't that the name of Ernest Worthing's imaginary and sickly friend?) a Jockey Club steward ... roller bunbury?
su 6 Oct 2013
Astonisher No.32: Having been secretly sold by Genoa to the French in 1764 Corsica only became openly French in 1768 just one year before Napoleon Bonaparte was born on the island, he retained a Corsican accent all his life ... funny what you learn isn't it in the centenary year of Le Tour.
fr 16 Aug 2013
Astonisher No.31: Alan Lomax is a giant figure in American folk and blues music having recorded in the field Muddy Waters, Lead Belly, Sonny Terry, Big Bill Broonzy, Woody Guthrie and others. Astonishingly in 1953 he made an album at the Blaxhall Ship with singers including Cyril Poacher. Although muso Steph the Pirate hadn't heard of Lomax he correctly intuited that Lomax was in the UK to avoid the House Un-American Activities Committee back in his native USA. ♫
tu 21 May 2013
Astonisher No.30: It didn't astonish or even surprise us that actor (he played Miranda's dad in the Christmas special) Tom Conti's full name is Thomas Antonio Conti or that his father Alfonso was interned as a belligerent alien during the second world war. What does astonish us is Alfonso returned home avoiding the Arandora Starafter his wife Mary gave a suitcase containing £2,000 to the highest ranking policeman she could find.
mo 25 Feb 2013
Astonisher No.29: It doesn't surprise us that WS Gilbert was a failed barrister before becoming a brilliant lyricist ♫Life is a joke that's just begun♫ but a bit surprised he died in 1911 at the age of 75 from a heart attack whilst going to the assistance of a young woman swimming in his garden ... a 100 years later great crested newts were found in the pool.
Astonisher No.65: In 1949 Ealing Studios released the comedies 
.jpg "Daphne du Maurier about 1930")
Astonisher No.36: The Bank of England got its first telephone in 1902 but was still buying quill pens in 1907.
Astonisher No.34: Canadian and retired professional wrestler Billy Two Rivers (we can remember him war dancing on telly in the 1960s) is the father of British fashion designer Wayne Hemingway.
Astonisher No.33: Legend has it that when the Derby (Britain's richest horse race) was conceived at a 1779 party a coin was tossed to decide whether the race should be named after the party's host the 12th Earl of Derby or Sir Charles Bunbury (wasn't that the name of Ernest Worthing's imaginary and sickly friend?) a Jockey Club steward ... 
