Sunday, March the 14th, 2004
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Edward Gibbon, author of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, was possibly the greatest writer of footnotes who ever lived. Here is a fine example of his art: “According to Julius Africanus, the world was created on the first of September—an opinion almost too foolish to be recorded.”
By inserting that “almost”, of course, Gibbon gets away with recording a wonderfully foolish opinion, and by doing so preserves it for us. We include it here in the hope that readers will contribute further foolish opinions, past and present, to create the Hooting Yard Pantheon o' Preposterousness. And yes, I know that there are many, many sites on the web devoted to such zaniness, but only at Hooting Yard will you find Edward Gibbon and Julius Africanus sharing a space with a photograph of black-caped, sepulchral-voiced brain guru Tony Buzan.