(this did not belong to TH)

"I have a faculty for burying an emotion in my heart or brain for forty years, and exhuming it at the end of that time as fresh as when interred", Thomas Hardy wrote; but he was also an almost-obsessed notebook keeper, and I'd wager those notes had something to do with that faculty. If you haven't heard the tale, Hardy had many many notebooks, different ones to record different things. He ordered that they be burnt on his death, and they were - barring a handful, including the Architectural Notebook, Studies, Specimens, etc, Trumpet-Major Notebook, some others - and the Facts Notebook.

Court - murder trial - doctor takes packet from pocket - unwraps: with calm
deliberation he held up to view what appeared to be a dirty piece of chamois
leather. This he explained, as a shudder passed through the Court, is the lung
of the deceased through which the knife went.

Dead - Woman comes on a visit to a friend - finds her dead and buried.

Coach hit by lightning - female passenger - bonnet, cap, gown etc burnt - umbrella shivered to atoms.

Boy and little brother in bed - parents entertaining a friend downstairs- father comes and sleeps besides boys - Friend and mother remain below some
time. Friend comes up, cuts the father's throat quietly as he sleeps. The children are afraid.

On Friday in PNG there was a classic; to report it in Hardy-fact-style: Newborn - unusually small head - mother rejects, but comes to accept - rumours spread -news headline "Baby born with snake head"

Remember great ones from India too, and going out to buy the papers especially