How did the Komodo dragon influence Hollywood? What do Wanted posters reveal about the Wild Wild East? Was the hapless explorer a martyr to science or a gaseous windbag? Why were colonial officials secret pill poppers? Did bicycles really promote Women's Lib? Who went looking for love in all the wrong places? What do you do at the Get-Rich-Quick Tree? The answers to these and many other questions are found in the witty, useful, informative, amusing and sometimes amazing stories that make up this collection. Inspired by the wry yet deeply scholarly perspective of Australian philologist Ian...