This compendious celebration of ineptitude includes some of history's most spectacularly ill-conceived expeditions and entirely useless pursuits, and features tales of black comedy, insane foolhardiness, breathtaking stupidity and relentless perseverance in the face of inevitable defeat.

Helps you prepare to be even more revolted, flabbergasted, appalled and entertained. This book includes entries such as: 10 Road-kill Recipes; History's 10 Most Murderous Regimes; 10 Historic Sex Toys; 10 People who Married Their Nieces; 10 Deaths by Sex; 10 People Killed by Falling Animals; 10 Ancient Remedies Containing Body Parts.

'The English aristocrat John 'Mad Jack' Mytton died a bloated, paralysed and penniless debtor in prison. His premature demise was partly due to injuries sustained while setting fire to his own night-shirt to try to cure hiccups. Just before the horribly burned Mytton slumped into unconsciousness he said, "Well, the hiccups is gone, by God."' An 18th-century French scholar attributed the British talent for eccentricity to a 'mixture of fogs, beef and beer...aggravated by the tedium of the English Sunday'. Whatever the reason, the British Isles do seem to have thrown up more than their fair...