Ficts

Did I mean Facts? One would think this book has been properly vetted, but some of these facts seem outrageous. So I am calling them Ficts, which has the same number of letters as Facts but suggests a certain... Fictive quality.

Here is a sampling. (For the record, I believe the ficts about Kingsley Amis, Starbucks, and Thoureau. And Disneyland.)

In Paraguay, dueling is legal if both participants are registered blood donors.
-- The Guardian World Cup 2006 Guide

The poet laureate of the United Kingdom is entitled to "a butt of sack per annum" -- 110 gallons of Spanish sherry, or about 630 bottles, each year.
-- Prospect Research

By the late 1970's, Kingsley Amis was spending 1,000 pounds a month on scotch.
-- Bookforum, February/March 2008

Starbucks bought 37 percent of Costa Rica's entire coffee crop in the 2004-05 season.
-- The Economist, April 1, 2006

Henry David Thoreau once burned down three hundred acres of forest trying to cook a fish he had caught for supper.
-- The Times, April 17, 2003

The length of time from invention to application of the ballpoint pen was fifty-eight years; for the zipper, it was thirty-two years.
-- U.K. Department of Trade and Industry

In the UK, the most effective musical deterrents to loiterers and vandals are anything sung by Pavarotti or written by Mozart.
-- The Economist, January 8, 2005

Until the late 1960s, men with long hair were not allowed to enter Disneyland.
-- Prospect Research