There's No Way Out of This Mess Quiz

Answer: Standing up

Ben Jonson (1572-1637) is considered by many people to be the second most important writer in English history after William Shakespeare (1564-1616). He had a very good education as a child, but his plans to attend Cambridge University were marred by his stepfather's insistence that he become apprenticed to him as a bricklayer, a job, perhaps understandably so, that Jonson detested. As soon as he could, therefore, he went to the Netherlands, where he took up soldiering as his trade. Upon returning to England, he next became an actor, where he built up a fine reputation in that field, and also as a playwright and poet of some note. His first great success was the play "Every Man in His Humour" in 1598, a comedy that featured among its cast the talented Bard himself.

Jonson's career was far more colourful than Shakespeare's more sedate progress. He spent time in prison on several occasions, killed a man in a duel, had a rather fiery marriage, converted to Catholicism, wrote works that met with the heavy disapproval of the censors of the time, enjoyed great favour from King James I, converted back to the Church of England, and has altogether led historians on a merry chase trying to keep up with his exploits. After dramatically assuring the Dean of Westminster he was too poor to be buried in Poet's Corner, and all he required for his final resting place was an area of ground measuring two feet by two feet, he died in great poverty. Whether it was that poverty, or the Dean's macabre sense of humour, but that's exactly how this writer was ultimately laid to rest - standing up, in the northern aisle of the Nave, in a space fitting those precise measurements. And there he "remains" to this day.

Answer: By inviting his friends to his suicide party

Nothing like going out in style - or so he thought. Montaug (1952-1991) was a well known doorman at several of New York's top nightclubs. He also ran a performance venue of his own at which stars such as Madonna and the Beastie Boys were showcased. Discovering his time was limited as a result of contacting AIDS, Montaug decided to end his life as a showman should.

He invited twenty guests to his apartment in Manhattan on the night of the planned event, to attend his suicide party. Bizarrely so, they all turned up. Madonna also paid a visit, via a long distance telephone call, for the occasion.

At the appropriate time, Montaug swallowed a handful of sleeping pills and drifted off to meet his maker. Or so he thought. To the dismay of all present, though his breathing lingered long and laboured into the early hours of the following day, Montaug didn't actually make it past the finishing line.

He awoke a few hours later in a complete rage at his finale turning out to be such a flop, took twenty more pills, and popped off within thirty minutes. One presumes the gallery of ghouls hung round long enough to see the encore.

Answer: Dancing

This is the weirdest thing, but true. Beginning in Germany in 1374, groups of people suddenly began to dance for no reason. That would seem to be a joyous thing, but this was definitely not the case. Once they started, the victims couldn't stop and danced on and on for hours or days until they either collapsed from exhaustion, or dropped dead. Hundreds of thousands of people fell victim to this plague over the next few centuries. The worst outbreak took place in Strasbourg in 1518 when thousands of people danced for over a month. Many died from heart attacks, stroke or exhaustion as a result. They literally danced themselves to death. Oh my goodness, you won't believe how the authorities attempted to deal with this illness. For some cock-eyed reason they decided that the cure for it would be to allow the dancers to keep dancing! To this end they built a stage for them and even hired musicians to help maintain the rhythm. The upshot of this was that, although it didn't cure those dancers already in the grip of the illness, more people leaped up and joined them in this dancing frenzy instead.

In Tanganyika in 1962, a mass attack of laughing broke out. By the time that epidemic ran its course some six months later, over one thousand people had laughed themselves silly. Other episodes of this kind include fainting epidemics, crying epidemics, screaming epidemics, and God help us all, farting epidemics.

Answer: It was part of the jaw of another soldier who had been blown up

Horribly, bizarrely so, a cannon shot had landed near the two men, and completely taken the head off the soldier's companion. As this happened, part of that poor man's jaw had flown straight into the survivor's face and remained imbedded there. This was not discovered until surgeons had taken a lot of care in trying to save it.

The surviving soldier's jaw subsequently proved to be fully intact, as were all his teeth - and that's one heck of a jaw dropping story.

Answer: Refugees from Jupiter

It's hard to believe this was anything but a publicity stunt, but who knows? In 1994 when NASA announced that Jupiter seemed likely to soon be bombarded by meteors, the Green River City Council set aside a special section of their derelict airstrip, designating it the Greater Green River Intergalactic Spaceport. Mayor George Eckman then contacted NASA and asked that organisation to make it known by public broadcast that any refugee Jovians on the way to earth would be more than welcome in their little neck of the woods. Only two members of his council objected to the mayor's harebrained scheme.

They pointed out that their region already had enough problems with illegal aliens.

Answer: He was accidentally cooked

As reported in the Time Leader and the Whittier Daily News in 2012, Jose, a worker at the Bumble Bee Tuna plant at Santa Fe, entered one of the huge ovens there to adjust a faulty piece of equipment, or so it's believed. By the time his fellow workers realised he was missing and commenced a search for him, it was way too late. Jose was found in the oven some ninety minutes later, dead of course, and cooked to perfection.

Answer: Nose

Poor Thomas indeed. As reported in George Milbry Gould's 1910 "Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine", by the time Thomas's enormous nose had reached its full length, it measured an incredible seven and a half inches, or nineteen centimetres, long. If you check this length on a tape measure or ruler, you'll see why the poor man made it into the record books. To add insult to injury, not only was Thomas cursed with a Pinocchio proboscis, he earned his living, more or less, by being put on display and taken on tours throughout England as a figure of public curiosity.

This is true. Under the circumstances, I wouldn't be game to tell a lie.

Answer: Violin strings

One would think that, instead of leaving his bowels to science for this purpose, he could at least have left them to the local conservatory of music instead. This was reported in the 1908 edition of "Eccentricities of Sane Testators," Law Notes by the above author.

The name of the testator is not given, just the legal facts. Not only did this man give away his real property to a perfect stranger so as to avoid his next of kin inheriting anything from him, he then went one step further, leaving his bowels to be used for fiddle strings, other parts to be made into smelling salts, and the remainder to be converted into optical lenses.

The testator did this, so it was reported, because he hated waste of any kind. Therefore, let us all take a lesson from this worthy tale, ladies and gentlemen.

Avoid taking violin lessons, look after your eyesight, and whatever you do, don't faint.

Answer: Beer

This took place at the Meux and Company Brewery in London on October 16, 1814. As one large container of beer cracked open, the force of its discharging contents took several other large container with it, creating a tidal wave of 323,000 gallons of grog.

This subsequently drowned seven people, flattened two homes in its path and demolished the wall of a local pub. How appropriate. Perhaps if it had been light ale, it would have done less damage? When the brewery was taken to court by those who had been harmed in the deluge, the judge ruled that nobody was to blame and that this had been an Act of God. If this had happened in Australia, it would have been declared an outright miracle.

Answer: Proceed with caution

As reported in the BBC news on 9 December, 2008, the Chinese's girl's hearing was damaged because the suction power of her boyfriend's kissing, according to the doctor in charge of the case "reduced the pressure in the mouth, pulled the eardrum out and caused the breakdown of the ear".

The subsequent warning issued by the authorities read that "A strong kiss may cause an imbalance in the air pressure between two inner ears and lead to a broken ear drum...and...while kissing is normally very safe, doctors advise people to proceed with caution".

The girl's hearing was expected to improve in due course. However, that's enough from me for now. I'm about to leave for a long, er, sightseeing tour of China.