All day the sounds of raised voices, overturning furniture and muffled gunshots have been heard coming from the room where the judges for our Trivial Fact of the Day award meet. As there appears to be no one left standing, I hereby declare the contest a tie between the following two facts.
The actor Leslie Nielsen, who died yesterday, had a brother who was the deputy prime minister of Canada.
Erik Nielsen, who died in 2008, served in that capacity between 1984 and 1986. The CBC website has an engaging audio of the two of them being interviewed together. The accompanying photograph suggests that, sadly, Erik did not look exactly like Leslie. That really would have been funny in the cabinet photographs.
The England cricketer Alastair Cook spent five years as a chorister at St Paul's Cathedral.
And it appears that you can here him singing a treble solo on a 1997 CD of works by Blow, Boyce and Handel: Music for St Paul's.
Lord Bonkers adds: The finest classical performance by an England batsman since Brian Luckhurst's Winterreise.
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Cook's treble voice was broadcast on Radio New Zealand this morning.
9:00 Composers of the Week
THOMAS ARNE (1710-1778) & WILLIAM BOYCE (1711-1779)
...
BOYCE: Lord, thou hast been our refuge - Edward Burrowes, Timothy Burtt, Alastair Cook (trebles), Robin Blaze (countertenor), Rogers Covey-Crump, Mark Le Brocq (tens), Choir of St Paul's Cathedral, Parley of Instruments/John Scott (Hyperion CDA 67009)
He has his own page on the Hyperion website.
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