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Jump to navigationJump to searchEmus Can't Walk Backwards: Another Round of Dubious Pub Facts by Robert Anwood (view source)
Revision as of 08:56, 6 May 2018
, 08:56, 6 May 2018no edit summary
The book is divided into categories such as nature, showbiz, science and the law, the first of these a seemingly inexhaustible source of unlikely truths. Nearly all the phenomena stated in this section turn out to be true.
I won't spoil it by giving away too many of these but if a pub bore ever corners you with an assertion about the capabilities of wasps or the stickiness of geckoes, he probably speaks the truth. As in the book's title, and that of the book's predecessor [[''Bears Can't Run Downhill: And 200 Other Dubious Pub Facts Explained]]'', the perambulatory habits of animals seem a particularly rich source of amazement. So we hear about elephants' similar problems with gradients, and the reverse locomotion of flies, as well as the emu problem mentioned in the title.
Illustrated with amusing cartoons in the deceptively childlike style pioneered by Michael Heath, the book does raise the occasional snort of laughter. One entry gets carried away with the spirit of the pub fact and fabricates away mendaciously, but retains the sliver of plausibility essential to even the most outlandish of these claims.
