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Joined-Up Thinking
What is the link between the Sex Pistols and crude oil; between Isaac Newton, Pink Floyd and a suicidal dwarf on the set of The Wizard of Oz ? What is Scooby-Doo’s real name, and why should you make a point of avoiding armadillos? You’ll find out the answers to these questions and a whole lot more in Joined-Up Thinking . Each chapter of the book begins with a fascinating piece of information, spins a dizzying web of connected facts and, with a spine-tingling final flourish, brings the loop full circle. So open up the book, begin at the beginning – and end at the beginning… `I found myself fascinated and, like a child who thinks it`s fun to go round and round in circles, somewhat dizzy. Most impressive` Stephen Fry `The book that nails that odd, slightly unnerving feeling that everything really is connected` John Mitchinson, co-author of The Book of General Ignorance
- GenresNonfictionScienceHistory
256 pages, Paperback
First published October 3, 2008
7 people are currently reading
87 people want to read
About the author
Stevyn Colgan
17 books61 followersAuthor, illustrator, songwriter and public speaker. 'QI' elf, 'Museum of Curiosity' goblin, Cornish Pisky and tea aficionado. Ex-chef, ex-copper, occasionally X-rated.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
November 27, 2018
My friend Nell sent me this nice book. Of course, I mean nice in the modern sense and not any of its old meanings. Nice started life meaning foolish and senseless and then meant wanton and loose – along the way it has also meant strange, slothful, lazy, effeminate, delicate, over-refined, shy, dainty, trivial and finally agreeable or kind. It has been a very busy word.
English is considered to have more words than any other language, so you might wonder why nice has needed to have quite so many meanings. Of course, deciding how many words a language has is not an easy matter – the fact is that it is quite impossible. All languages have words for numbers, for example, and we all know there is an infinite number of those and so all languages must have an infinite number of words.
Some numbering systems are much more logical than others. It is hard to imagine that the placement system which seems so obvious and logical to us today actually had a hard time getting accepted and that some of the greatest of mathematicians did all of their mathematics using numbers that did not use it. I used to believe that this would make doing multiplication hard, except they didn’t actually do multiplication with Roman Numerals, but rather with an abacus. Roman Numerals were only used for recording calculations, not for actually calculating them. It seems also true that the fact that some languages use logical names for their numbers positively affects how well their children learn mathematics.
Asian languages tend to have names for numbers that directly relate to the numbers or fractions being described and are also consistent with the numbers’ placement system. So that 14 will be ten four rather than the very odd English fourteen which is backwards and confuses kids even more by sounding remarkably like our word for 40.
Life is supposed to begin at 40, but really, for me it began in Northern Ireland. I mention this because this book was sent to me for my birthday. I’ve only just learnt that one of my heroes was also born in Northern Ireland – James Burke, most famous for his television series The Day the Universe Changed and Connections. Both of which ought to be compulsory viewing. In Connections he shows how no single event or discovery in history is unconnected to its time. Sometimes those connections and the consequences of them are surprising or even shocking. They are always interesting. This book does for trivia what Burke did for history, shows a series of fascinatingly linked up facts.
The most famous Burke in Australian history was the Irish policeman with an appropriate looking long beard who died on the misadventure to the Cape of Carpentaria known as the Burke and Wills Expedition. Burke was forced to take Ludwig Becker with him, a German scientific artist, socialist and, well, to be frank another hero of mine. Becker at the time was in his fifties and Burke felt that if Becker lived through the expedition people would say it couldn’t have been all that hard – so he effectively worked Becker to death. An act of cruelty and stupidity that pretty much summed up this ‘scientific expedition’ and explains why you don't put a jock in charge of science.
James Burke made his name covering another scientific expedition – the Apollo mission - as a journalist. I had always assumed he must have been a professor of history somewhere, but instead his life and interests sound disturbingly similar to mine. Of course, for anyone interested in ideas history is an inevitable attraction, just as anyone interested in words will tend to end up interested in poetry.
For a lot of people poetry is too much like hard work, but the odd thing is how frequently lines of poetry spring into one’s mind at unexpected times. This is often true in what I guess could be called ‘crisis points’ in one’s life. Excessive joy or pain are particularly prone for this little trick poetry likes to play – although sometimes the connection as to why a line of Keats should suddenly come to mind while we are eating muscles may remain forever obscure. Such being but one of the happenstances of life.
HappenStance Press is a poetry publisher specialising in poetry pamphlets http://www.happenstancepress.com/. It has produced some delightful books of poetry by some wonderful poets – a breed of person that our world could do with more of. It was set up by my very dear friend of a thousand names, one of which is Helena Nelson. There is a lovely saying that a favourite child tends to have more names than God. One of the other names I know Ms Nelson by is Nell.
My friend Nell sent me this nice book.
English is considered to have more words than any other language, so you might wonder why nice has needed to have quite so many meanings. Of course, deciding how many words a language has is not an easy matter – the fact is that it is quite impossible. All languages have words for numbers, for example, and we all know there is an infinite number of those and so all languages must have an infinite number of words.
Some numbering systems are much more logical than others. It is hard to imagine that the placement system which seems so obvious and logical to us today actually had a hard time getting accepted and that some of the greatest of mathematicians did all of their mathematics using numbers that did not use it. I used to believe that this would make doing multiplication hard, except they didn’t actually do multiplication with Roman Numerals, but rather with an abacus. Roman Numerals were only used for recording calculations, not for actually calculating them. It seems also true that the fact that some languages use logical names for their numbers positively affects how well their children learn mathematics.
Asian languages tend to have names for numbers that directly relate to the numbers or fractions being described and are also consistent with the numbers’ placement system. So that 14 will be ten four rather than the very odd English fourteen which is backwards and confuses kids even more by sounding remarkably like our word for 40.
Life is supposed to begin at 40, but really, for me it began in Northern Ireland. I mention this because this book was sent to me for my birthday. I’ve only just learnt that one of my heroes was also born in Northern Ireland – James Burke, most famous for his television series The Day the Universe Changed and Connections. Both of which ought to be compulsory viewing. In Connections he shows how no single event or discovery in history is unconnected to its time. Sometimes those connections and the consequences of them are surprising or even shocking. They are always interesting. This book does for trivia what Burke did for history, shows a series of fascinatingly linked up facts.
The most famous Burke in Australian history was the Irish policeman with an appropriate looking long beard who died on the misadventure to the Cape of Carpentaria known as the Burke and Wills Expedition. Burke was forced to take Ludwig Becker with him, a German scientific artist, socialist and, well, to be frank another hero of mine. Becker at the time was in his fifties and Burke felt that if Becker lived through the expedition people would say it couldn’t have been all that hard – so he effectively worked Becker to death. An act of cruelty and stupidity that pretty much summed up this ‘scientific expedition’ and explains why you don't put a jock in charge of science.
James Burke made his name covering another scientific expedition – the Apollo mission - as a journalist. I had always assumed he must have been a professor of history somewhere, but instead his life and interests sound disturbingly similar to mine. Of course, for anyone interested in ideas history is an inevitable attraction, just as anyone interested in words will tend to end up interested in poetry.
For a lot of people poetry is too much like hard work, but the odd thing is how frequently lines of poetry spring into one’s mind at unexpected times. This is often true in what I guess could be called ‘crisis points’ in one’s life. Excessive joy or pain are particularly prone for this little trick poetry likes to play – although sometimes the connection as to why a line of Keats should suddenly come to mind while we are eating muscles may remain forever obscure. Such being but one of the happenstances of life.
HappenStance Press is a poetry publisher specialising in poetry pamphlets http://www.happenstancepress.com/. It has produced some delightful books of poetry by some wonderful poets – a breed of person that our world could do with more of. It was set up by my very dear friend of a thousand names, one of which is Helena Nelson. There is a lovely saying that a favourite child tends to have more names than God. One of the other names I know Ms Nelson by is Nell.
My friend Nell sent me this nice book.
April 18, 2016
I first heard about Stevyn Colgan after a friend suggested that I should invite him to be a speaker at the writers’ group that I’m organising. He’s a local writer who’s attained a certain level of success, winning praise from Stephen Fry and Q.I. creators John Lloyd and John Mitchinson – in fact, Colgan went on to become an Elf on the show, a term that’s used to describe their researchers.
Because of this, I already knew quite a lot of the facts that Colgan includes in the book – many of them were recycled and used within the show, and I’ve watched every episode multiple times. That said, it didn’t really matter, because Colgan’s point here is that everything’s connected – he’s effectively using the six degrees of separation with facts.
For example, he may begin by explaining how to hypnotise a chicken, then relate that to chicken nuggets, then relate that to the gold rush, then relate that to the song Gold by Spandau Ballet, and then it might transpire that the lead singer for Spandau Ballet (Tony Hadley) keeps pet chickens.
Now, that’s a hypothetical example, and Colgan is much better at making links than I am, but it does illustrate how the book is laid out. In fact, every single chapter, including the final chapter which houses the acknowledgements and dedications, is written in a loop. Must’ve been challenging to plan, but it’s well-executed.
Because of this, I already knew quite a lot of the facts that Colgan includes in the book – many of them were recycled and used within the show, and I’ve watched every episode multiple times. That said, it didn’t really matter, because Colgan’s point here is that everything’s connected – he’s effectively using the six degrees of separation with facts.
For example, he may begin by explaining how to hypnotise a chicken, then relate that to chicken nuggets, then relate that to the gold rush, then relate that to the song Gold by Spandau Ballet, and then it might transpire that the lead singer for Spandau Ballet (Tony Hadley) keeps pet chickens.
Now, that’s a hypothetical example, and Colgan is much better at making links than I am, but it does illustrate how the book is laid out. In fact, every single chapter, including the final chapter which houses the acknowledgements and dedications, is written in a loop. Must’ve been challenging to plan, but it’s well-executed.
July 10, 2017
The idea of everything being connected is brilliant and the facts shared in the book are fascinating and sometimes striking, but at the one third of the book I started feeling somehow cheated and bored (apologies). Bored by too much data which transform a very pleasant read into a history or statistics lesson. And cheated by the connections the author makes in his book. The connections not between facts, events and/or things collected in a cause-and-consequence chain, while only nominal ones.
Nevertheless, author's sense of humour and narrative talent help to enjoy the book.
Nevertheless, author's sense of humour and narrative talent help to enjoy the book.
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December 17, 2010Disappointing. Not particularly interesting facts linked in pointless and tenuous ways. The links are of the nature of "Some guy blah blah...He once lived in Spain. Spain was also the home of some other guy...blah blah..." - not meaningful or enriching connections. I suggest reading Wikipedia instead.
May 21, 2015
I love books like this, full of random facts and unusual stuff. I didn't give this book 5 stars because, for some reason I couldn't quite put my finger on, I did struggle to get into the book. I think it was because every chapter, although full of joined-up trivia, was very similar in flow. Having said all that, it was still a very enjoyable book if this is your sort of thing.
November 15, 2016
I love the way that Stevyn weaves a web of connections in this book that can leave you shocked, amazed, incredulous and in awe, all at the same time. Reading it left me, at times dizzy with expectation and excitement and I found it hard to put down. Several times I had to phone friends to tell them about 'this link' or 'that connection' and my most repeated phrases at the time were, 'Did you know...?' and 'You'll never guess what I've just found out...' This is definitely a 'must read' for trivia geeks!
April 13, 2024
Like the QI elves took acid. Fact after fact, after loop after link, after wandering somewhere obscure then wrestling it back round to the origin of the chapter. No mean feat. Some fascinating trivia in here. Somewhat overwhelming at times. Hats off to Stevyn Colgan for that feat of collation.
March 11, 2017
Always plenty of fun to be had with a book of quirky facts. The concept is equally quirky, and it does make for nice succinct chapters, perfect for a book designed to be dipped into. However, although, yes, each fact does connect onto the next one, many of these connections are quite tangential, meaning that although the facts are connected, they're often not related. For example, a passage about stealth bombers segues into a passage about vitamins, the common link being the designation B2.
And after a bit, I found it a tad wearing, and yearned perhaps for something a little more traditionally organised. But that's probably just me.
Other than that, on the quirky fact front, it more than delivers, which is of course the main thing.
And after a bit, I found it a tad wearing, and yearned perhaps for something a little more traditionally organised. But that's probably just me.
Other than that, on the quirky fact front, it more than delivers, which is of course the main thing.
August 24, 2012
A brilliant quirky book that is so meta- that it hurts. Jam-packed full of trivia that will embed itself into your head, this wonderful book was made for sharing, and for recommending to other people.
September 4, 2015
Quite interesting (ahem), if necessarily scatter-shot. Colgan mentions Douglas Adams in a couple of places, but oddly neglects to bring up his phrase from Dirk Gently, "the fundamental interconnectedness of all things", which, surely, is this book in a nutshell.
June 15, 2012
Excellent read,To think how these things link up is amazing.Very clever book,Once you start reading you cant stop.
June 26, 2013
Interesting concept, each chapter starts and ends with the same sentence, with the chapter ranges from a bunch of different topics related by a similar thread.
June 21, 2013
A great pick and put down book. One for the trivia buffs
November 14, 2016
A light, fun book to read in small chunks as you commute on public transit. You will be amused, engaged, and you might even learn a few facts along the way.
January 29, 2011
Very enjoyable read, throughout.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews