Roll Call

In November 2006, 23-year-old David Fearn of Staffordshire changed his name to James Dr. No From Russia With Love Goldfinger Thunderball You Only Live Twice On Her Majesty’s Secret Service Diamonds Are Forever Live and Let Die The Man With the Golden Gun The Spy Who Loved Me Moonraker For Your Eyes Only Octopussy A View to a Kill The Living Daylights Licence to Kill GoldenEye Tomorrow Never Dies The World Is Not Enough Die Another Day Casino Royale Bond.

It’s the longest name in deed poll history.

Clockwise

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Germany_Schaefer_1911.jpg

Germany Schaefer stole first base. On Aug. 4, 1911, playing for the Washington Senators, Schaefer stole second base conventionally, hoping to draw a throw from the catcher so a teammate could steal home. The catcher didn’t throw, so on the next pitch Schaefer ran back to first.

That was legal at the time, but rule 7.08i now forbids a player to run the bases in reverse order “for the purpose of confusing the defense or making a travesty of the game.”

Duck Soup

T.S. Eliot was a fan of Groucho Marx. The two maintained a correspondence through the early 1960s, when Groucho accepted a long-offered dinner with the poet.

Eliot wrote: “The picture of you in the newspapers saying that, amongst other reasons, you have come to London to see me has greatly enhanced my credit in the neighborhood, and particularly with the greengrocer across the street. Obviously I am now someone of importance.”

Silver Bullet

The Lone Ranger’s creed, devised by creator Fran Striker:

I believe:

  • That to have a friend, a man must be one.
  • That all men are created equal and that everyone has within himself the power to make this a better world.
  • That God put the firewood there, but that every man must gather and light it himself.
  • In being prepared physically, mentally, and morally to fight when necessary for that which is right.
  • That a man should make the most of what equipment he has.
  • That “this government of the people, by the people, and for the people” shall live always.
  • That men should live by the rule of what is best for the greatest number.
  • That sooner or later … somewhere … somehow … we must settle with the world and make payment for what we have taken.
  • That all things change but truth, and that truth alone lives on forever.
  • In my Creator, my country, my fellow man.

“The Keats of Chess”

Rudolf Charousek had been playing chess for only four years when he found himself facing this position against Jakob Wollner at Kaschau in 1893:

charousek-wollner, kaschau 1893

He found one of the most immortally pretty finishes in chess history — to discover it, read Kester Svendsen’s 1947 short story “Last Round,” which the game inspired.

Three years afterward, Charousek defeated Lasker at Nuremberg. “I shall have to play a championship match with this man someday,” the master remarked, but it was not to be — the Hungarian died of tuberculosis in 1900, at only 26.

There Can Be Only One

http://books.google.com/books?id=CphHAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&rview=1#PPA35,M1http://books.google.com/books?id=CphHAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&rview=1#PPA36,M1

A do-it-yourself dancing highlander, from Frank Bellew’s The Art of Amusing (1866). Cut him out, stitch him to a glove, and make little socks for your fingers.

http://books.google.com/books?id=CphHAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&rview=1#PPA35,M1http://books.google.com/books?id=CphHAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&rview=1#PPA36,M1

“You move about the fingers, simulating a man dancing the Highland-fling or double-shuffle, and the result will be very curious and eminently satisfactory.”