Hippo Eats Dwarf - Softcover

Boese, Alex

3.55

549 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0752227068 ISBN 13: 9780752227061

Publisher: Boxtree Ltd, 2009

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The following news story apparently first appeared in the Las Vegas Sun:

'A circus dwarf, nicknamed Od, died recently when he bounced sideways from a trampoline and was swallowed by a yawning hippopotamus waiting to appear in the next act. More than 1,000 spectators continued to applaud wildly until they realized the tragic mistake.'

And yet, of course, Od never existed; which doesn't stop the story appearing every few years as a news item, set in fictional circuses from Manchester to Thailand and Sydney. The hippo-eats-dwarf story is a) bizarre, b) almost certainly fake and c) masquerading as real, which describes a disturbing amount of what we hear and read about in magazines and on the web.

Scientific investigator Alex Boese, who has for ten years run the web's biggest myth-busting website www.museumofhoaxes.com, has collected together a wonderfully entertaining anthology of the best urban myths of recent years, from bonsai kittens reared in jars to keep them small to male lactation, and confirms or de-bunks them once and for all. So did Burger King really release a left-handed Whopper, with all of the condiments rotated through 180 degrees? Is dehydrated water available to buy online? Or are they just hippo-eats-dwarf urban myths?

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Product Description:

The world's greatest urban myths, fakes and hoaxes, from Bonsai kittens to human-flavoured tofu

Review:

'Tales such as a circus dwarf bouncing off a trampoline into the mouth of a yawning hippo and "miracle pregnancies" all make for alternative beach reading!'
--OK magazines Hot Stars

'A riotous scroll through some of the most outrageous tales we've all heard but just can't be sure of their veracity. Alex Boese has gathered a collection of urban myths, fakes and hoaxes and set about de-bunking or proving them.' --Sunday Post

`It's a crazy, mixed-up world out there, where spaghetti still grows on trees, and Bill Gates will send you money for forwarding his email. Thank heavens for Alex Boese, self-proclaimed `hoaxpert', to give us all a reality check.'
--BBC Focus

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