100 things you never knew you wanted to know...

2 The word "sackless" originally meant "without guile".

3 The gag about Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers is the column's favourite joke.

4 Tate's compass always pointed in the wrong direction - as in "He who has a Tate's is lost."

5 Peter Nesom, the Hunwick schoolmaster who first led the column gently down Apostrophe Avenue, died at 52.

6 Larn Yersel Geordie author Scott Dobson's tombstone, in Malta, has the epitaph "Gan canny".

7 Cumbria police were treating an arson hit industrial estate in Whitehaven as "a crime hot spot."

8 Everyone has a different opinion on the meaning of the word "howk."

9 Nasher, tuggie, narkie, snagger, snigger and bagie are all North-East terms for the turnip.

10 Epimetheus reckoned that the three best things in the world were a good wife, experience and hope.

11 The word "northern" occurs over 200 times in the Old Testament but only twice in the New.

12 A Frenchman wearing sandals is called Phillipe Flop.

13 "Gaffer" originally meant old man. The female equivalent was "gammer."

14 Ray and Dave Davis of The Kinks and the column's dear old dad all came from Muswell Hill in London.

15 Cockney rhyming slang for Prince Philip is The Big Bubble. (Bubble and squeak = Greek.)

16 We still can't really decide where "The whole nine yards" came from (or "Left footer," either).

17 Cockney rhyming for a fart is a Lionel. (As in Lionel Bart.)

18 On Merseyside an iced lolly is called a lolly ice and a jigger-rabbit is a cat.

19 When Tommy Dawson was chairman of Beamish Workmen's Club, his party piece was Dan, Dan the Sanitary Man.

20 Vauxhall weren't making men redundant. According to The Guardian it was a "volume related production schedule adjustment."

21 The collective noun for jellyfish is a "smuck", for woodcocks a "fall" and for columnists (perhaps) a pillar.

22 The feminine form of "Blackfellow" - an Australian Aboriginal - is gin.

23 In parts of Tyneside, the double four domino is known as the Blaydon Cow.

24 Britain's only harmonium museum is at Saltaire, in Yorkshire.

25 The number 213 bus gets no quicker, nor the number 1 either.

26 Anne Boleyn had three breasts and six fingers on her left hand.

27 The column was officially appointed "Keeper of the Queen's Apostrophe" by the Coundon Society for the Prevention and Prosecution of Felons.

28 "Episcopal" is an anagram of Pepsi-Cola and "Presbyterians" is an anagram of Britney Spears.

29 Two hundred years ago, all Hampshire owls hooted in the key of B flat.

30 There really is an Idle Workmen's Club in Yorkshire.

31 Newcastle has more listed buildings than any city in the country except Bath.

32 The Mademoiselle from Armentieres hadn't been kissed for 40 years.

33 A Shildon advertiser offered four Rembrandts, "signed and dated", for £20.

34 The difference between a bad marksman and a constipated owl? One shoots but cannot hit....

35 The Mallaig Prawn Queen competition is for Scotsmen in drag.

36 The splendid Dorothy Morton, a 74-year-old from Etherley, has a car with the registration 32 CUP.

37 The Pacific island of Isabella has been rid of goats.

38 A judge once complained to defending counsel F E Smith, that he was no wiser than when his summing up began. "Possibly not," said Smith, "but you are better informed."

39 Sutton-under-Whitestonecliffe, near Thirsk, is England's longest single place name.

40 The column's favourite North-East place name is probably Morton Tinmouth - Queen Camel (Dorset) won the national vote.

41 The camel is pregnant for 13 months and has three stomachs.

42 We can explain the smile on the face of the camel, too.

43 Africa sent a missionary to Kelloe in the Spring.

44 The national nettle eating championship was won by a chap who ate 76 feet of stalk.

45 Basic Cottages is in Coxhoe - really quite smart, it's said.

46 Dirt Pot, in Upper Teesdale, may be the geographical centre of the North.

47 The Oxford English Dictionary includes "Tyneside" but not "Wearside".

48 The derogatory "Ned" was originally a probation service term meaning "non-educated delinquent."

49 The Echo's most frequent gaffes include confusing "descendant" with "ancestor" and misspelling "ex-patriot".

50 Ayr is known as "The honest town."

51 A half of orange and lemonade at the Hilton in Birmingham is £3.25, a pint of flatulent bitter £2.95.

52 Middlesbrough Council advertised for an "anti-social behaviour co-ordinator."

53 The chap carrying a pair of skis through the Channel Tunnel? He was a slalom seeker.

54 Greggs don't sell stotties south of Richmond, North Yorkshire.

55 And what a Shildon lad calls a plate of cold chips? A salad.

56 The collective noun for ladies of the night is said to be an anthology. (As in an anthology of pro's.)

57 Then there's a jam of tarts and a fanfare of strumpets.

58 Jim Whelan, one of our oldest and most respected informants, died at 73.

59 Greggs in Darlington had a special iced bun offer: 25p each or four for £1.

60 Clubbers in Yorkshire (a reader reported) have been injecting the drug ecstasy directly into their mouths - a dangerous practice known as "E by gum."

61 Down south they eat lardy cake.

62 The head teacher at St Trinian's was called Miss Umbrage.

63 Former television weatherman Jack Scott, from Ferryhill, is still set fair at 79.

64 The head of King Henry's Grammar School in Hartlepool was known as The Count, because of an alleged resemblance to Dracula.

65 Faustino Asprilla, who almost signed for Darlington, was Colombian not Columbian. (Columbia was a record label.)

66 The rusting Tees tug John H Amos is now moored in Kent.

67 The haunted householder who wouldn't pay the exorcist? He had it repossessed.

68 The ten commandments have been translated into text-message language.

69 The Darlington area phone book has four Nutters but no Virgins.

70 Middlesbrough goalie Arthur Lightening never returned from South Africa after being allowed to attend a wedding there in 1963.

71 Tiger nuts can still be had for 50p a bag.

72 Amelia Bloomer first made the undergarment which still bears her name.

73 The lady who invented Bill and Ben once taught in Crook. She was paid £1 an episode.

74 Disgraced "Mr Newcastle" T Dan Smith encouraged fellow prisoner Leslie Grantham to take up acting.

75 Su Pollard finished second to a singing dog on Opportunity Knocks.

76 Television cook Fanny Craddock was expelled from school for encouraging classmates to contact the spirit world.

77 "Doughnuts like Fanny's" was presented at Bishop Auckland Town Hall.

78 Sunderland last scored at Wembley in 1979.

79 Bonanza, the 1950s western, was a favourite among homosexuals.

80 The Teesdale Mercury advertised a sheep dog for sale - "frightened of sheep."

81 Mr J C Muckart was once a Co Durham cleansing supervisor.

82 Peter Sotheran in Redcar now knows where to buy proper string vests.

83 Good Friday never did fall on Boxing Day, though Christmas Day once did.

84 A letter sent from Shildon to "Stanhope, Bishop Auckland" ended up in Auckland, New Zealand.

85 A house for sale in We st Kyo, Stanley, was advertised - by a lisping estate agent, perhaps - in a "thought after" area.

86 Little Plum is returning to The Beano.

87 Little Plum's horse is called Treaclefoot.

88 The Dandy once had a strip called Our Teacher's a Walrus.

89 Tesco in Consett has the slogan "Every little helps" beneath the sign for the gent's toilet,

90 An escolar is a particularly ugly fish.

91 Oscar Wilde also reckoned that he could resist everything except temptation.

92 The Archbishop of York's spokesman runs a public relations firm called 33rpm.

93 A 1,384 word letter to the Teesdale Mercury began: "I get carried away with the exuberance of my own verbosity." It was rejected.

94 The Decca record company turned down The Beatles in February 1962.

95 Ambidextrously is the longest word in which no letter appears more than once.

96 "Order" has 11 different meanings.

97 Surmising who was the most published Hear All Sides correspondent was a mistake.

98 "Binger" was a Sunderland word for a half-smoked tab.

99 The collective noun for cobblers is a drunkship...the book we almost mentioned last week is Schott's Original Miscellany by Ben Schott (Bloomsbury, £9.99). Thanks to Eileen Smith at The Book Case, Chester-le-Street - "the best ever collection of essential trivia," she says.

100 It's been a lovely year but doesn't time fly? The drunkship sails again on January 8.