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Hippo Eats Dwarf!

Claims that margarine is one molecule away from plastic, a cat thought to weigh 87lbs, the editing of wildlife documentaries – Alex Boese presents a wide range of examples of the spoofs, scams, urban legends and advertising ploys that have proliferated in the modern world, accompanying his selection with ‘reality checks’ for readers to test their own skill at detecting whether a story is true.

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RRP £9.99

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Product information:
  • Publisher: Pan
  • Year: 2010
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 288pp
  • Illustrated: Yes
  • Dimensions: 196x129mm
  • ISBN: 9780330512916
  • Condition: New
  • Weight: 0.2kg
Product code:
545703
Product information
Full publisher description
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 bizarre, almost certainly fake and 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 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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