In 1993 Jay Gilbert, Seth Berger and Tom Austin founded a basketball brand

They called it And1

They started by selling T-Shirts with trash talking slogans on them

Three years in they were doing well

Sir Alex Ferguson’s approach to scouting players for Man Utd was simple


He would have a few very good scouts around the world who he trusted

As well as an incredible network of contacts he had built up over his long career

When these people saw a player they thought was an incredible talent

There is a moment in the fifth Hitchhiker Guide to the Galaxy book

Where the hero Arthur Dent finds himself on a technologically primitive planet in a faraway galaxy

He is from a planet of cars and fine wines

So he expects to soon be able to rustle some of these things up

One of the founding principles of modern America is the separation of church and state

Meaning religion is supposed to be separate from governmental activity

Like law making and education

But this separation is coming under increasing pressure

In 1989 three day-care centres were threatened with legal action by Disney

Very Important Babies, Good Godmother and Temple Messianique in Florida received the news on the same day


Their crime… murals. 


In 1943 the US army had a problem

They had a brilliant new engine called a Goblin

But they had no plane to go around it

They needed a new type of jet

Bob Mortimer wasn’t always a comedian

He started out as a solicitor

But one Thursday evening in South London he headed down to the Goldsmiths Tavern

Where in an upstairs room he stumbled across Vic Reeves’ Big Night Out

There are about 1.3 billion Catholics around the world

Making Pope Francis a serious influencer

Lots of people hope that he’ll change the church’s stance on condoms

From being anti to be being accepting

In the early 1970s Larry Gagosian had a stall selling posters outside UCLA

By 1976 he moved from his stall into an old restaurant on the westside of LA

Upgrading from posters to prints as he did

By the end of the 70s Gagosian had opened two new spaces

One night in 1933 Percy Shaw was driving to the pub

It was a journey he knew well

Along a dangerous road with a steep drop on one side

As he went round a corner everything went pitch black

I once had a football coach who achieved the impossible

He made football obsessed teenagers dread playing football

He was vindictive and a bully

Training and matches became ordeals

The June 2014 cover of Time Magazine just said ‘Eat Butter’

Supported by the line

‘Scientists labelled fat the enemy, why they were wrong’

Great headline for butter

Jerry Seinfeld is one of the funniest people ever

His sitcom aired for 180 episodes

He’s performed countless stand-up shows

And comedians in cars getting coffee aired for 11 seasons

Last weekend Corteiz released their new jacket the Bolo

It sent the streetwear scene wild

They announced a first drop in a car park in West London

In next to no time, it was packed

In 1950 Austin Hill and Richard Doll wrote to every doctor in the UK

They wanted to know how much they smoked

And down the line how they died

40K doctors got back to them to take part

Stand-up comedy in Britain revolves around August

The Edinburgh Festival is the focal point

Comics need a new 60 minutes for it each year

So after they’ve finished one year

On the 30th of October 1974 Mohammed Ali and George Forman were finally ready to get it on.

The Rumble in the Jungle was the most anticipated fight of all time


They didn’t get into the ring until 4:30 am local time in Zaire

About 10:30pm in America

When you arrive in Amsterdam the first thing you need is a bike

But choosing which bike to get is really difficult

There are almost 900k bikes in Amsterdam

More than the number of people

In 2001 Christopher Nolan wasn’t a household name

He had only made Momento at this point

A good film but not a huge box office hit

Later that year he had a meeting at Warner Bros. and pitched them Inception

When Marc Ronson was starting out he would DJ all the clubs in New York

And he really put the work in

Often doing six-hour sets, four or five times a week

It didn’t take him long to develop a great reputation