I have been aware for a long time that George Washington had false teeth – but I always thought they were made of wood.

It's funny the little misconceptions you build up over time. Stories that seem outlandish but whose very strangeness make you kind of want to believe them. And after hearing a story enough times you do start believing it.
For instance, the myth that water goes a different way down the plughole in the two different hemispheres – untrue I'm afraid.
It has often been said that one of the reasons for Christopher Columbus' famous voyage which discovered America was to prove that the world was round. From this it has been assumed that those before Columbus, certainly back in ancient times, believed the world was flat.
This is, also, not true.
It turns out that since around the fourth century BC no one, anywhere, has believed the world is flat. The idea about Columbus was put forward – completely incorrectly – in a semi-fictional book by Washington Irving, The Life and Voyage of Christopher Columbus, written in 1928.
And what of the Flat Earth Society? Well the idea that the earth was flat was only put forward as recently as 1838 when a famously eccentric Englishman by the name of Samuel Birley Rowbotham wrote a short paper in which he claimed to prove it. Even then – and quite sensibly - nobody paid any attention.
It was much later, in the 1950s, that another somewhat eccentric gentleman, a devout Christian called Samuel Shenton, founded the International Flat Earth Society, a project that appeared doomed when a decade later NASA landed on the moon. Upon being shown photographs of the earth, which do seem to clearly suggest a globe of some description, Shenton was unmoved, 'It's easy to see how a photograph like that could fool the untrained eye,” he said.
Others were less sceptical of the photographic evidence and the society today only exists as an internet forum. The internet eh? – That fount of wisdom where people can still happily believe that the moon landing was a hoax.
But back to George Washington; I always thought his teeth were made of wood. Why not? It seemed like a sensible solution to early dentistry problems. But it turns out that none of Washington's many sets of false teeth (he had only one original tooth left on becoming president) were made of wood. In fact, the set made when he became president was carved from hippopotamus ivory. As the book I was reading described it, 'The hippo parts were used for the plate into which real human teeth and also bits of horses' and donkeys' teeth were inserted.”
It all sounds a bit unpleasant. I guess it makes sense but it had never occurred to me that people used other people's teeth when their own wore, or fell, out. But it is said that at the battle of Waterloo, where 50,000 men died, so many teeth were subsequently removed for this purpose that for years afterwards dentures were known as 'Waterloo Teeth”.
All of which leads me to Bob Dylan, whom no regular reader will be surprised to see popping up again.
I would never in a million years have believed that Bob Dylan would make a Christmas album. If anyone had seriously proposed this to me I would have laughed in their face. But he has.
Word of this emerged a couple of months back, leaving myself and other Dylan fans in a state of something like shock. Shortly after, it was also announced that the album, Christmas In The Heart, would be a benefit – Dylan would be donating all royalties present and future to three organisations that combat world hunger, Feeding America in the United States; Crisis, in Great Britain; and the United Nations' World Hunger Programme.
And now the album is in shops and turns out to be an absolutely traditional Christmas album in full innocent 1950s style. Songs run from, 'It Must Be Santa” and 'Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”, to 'Oh Little Town of Bethlehem” and 'Come all Ye Faithful”, the last of which finds Bob singing the first verse in Latin.
Of all the things I never thought would happen, that last one is pretty near the top of the list. Nice that life can still offer little surprises.