This is the Yes or BS blog, where you can play the game for yourself. Either pick a random story from the pictures below, or choose your specialist subject from the categories listed here. Just read the story through and decide whether, YES, you think it’s true, or no, you think it’s total B.S—then click you answer in the box at the bottom of each post to see if you’re correct.
The Sultan of Brunei: so rich, his title has become a metaphor for wealth and opulence. But when it comes to cash flow, rather than pure wealth—and when it comes to pure hedonism rather than opulence—perhaps the current Sultan of Brunei, Hassanal Bolkiah, isn’t quite the metaphor we’re after. Instead, we need to turn to his brother, Prince Jefri, who (if statistics are to believed) has personally spent more money than any human being in history. It may be Jefri’s brother who
“Dear Diary, you won’t believe what happened to me today...” (Public domain/Wikimedia) Charles Dickens was mugged while walking alone along Chatham harbour in Kent in 1859. But in a twist akin to Magwitch’s reappearance in Great Expectations, Dickens instantly recognised his attacker. The man in question was Henry Tilbury, an old schoolfriend of Dickens from his formative years living in Chatham, before his family moved back to London with his father’s work in 1822. Although
James I of Scotland might not be the most well known of British monarchs, but his life story is certainly one worth knowing. Born in 1394, he rose to become first in line to the Scottish throne after his two elder brothers, Robert and David, both died before his ninth birthday (David dying under mysterious circumstances while in the care of his uncle in 1402). And that was just the beginning. King James I of Scotland: Loved a bit of brocade; haircuts, less so (Public domain/W
Guilt can be a terrible thing. It can makes people do the most extraordinary things. Like confess to the murder of someone who died one and a half millennia before they were born. (Wix) In 1961 a man named Peter Rayn-Bardt brutally murdered his wife in the town of Wilmslow, Cheshire, and buried her remains in a peat bog on the outskirts of the town. Although police suspected that he was somehow involved in her disappearance, at the time there wasn’t enough evidence to pin the
What would be your first reaction to someone firing artillery at you in a warzone? A. Run away B. Try and find some way to fight back C. Assume it was a friendly hello, and go and send someone out talk to the person who shot at you Well, if you answered C to that question then it seems you’d be perfectly suited for the job of Marine Corps Captain of the Spanish Army in colonial Guam. Because that’s exactly what the holder that title, a Mr Pedro Duarte, did when the island of
The Northampton of today—located around 60 miles northwest of London—is an established commuter town once described by the Daily Mail as “lively at night, but the action is racier in nearby Milton Keynes”. Well, we’ll have to take their word for it on that one. But it seems Northampton was an infinitely livelier town at the outbreak of the English Civil War, when Lord Spencer Compton, 2nd Earl of Northamptonshire, was running the show. Lord Compton was a vehement supporter of