"My first public appearance was not a success," the reporter Leslie Mitchell once recalled. "Leaning forward expectantly, my mother opened her eyes to look at her first-born. When she saw me hanging upside-down with limbs outstretched, she clutched her bosom and fell back on the pillows in horror. 'My God,' she cried, 'it's a frog!' and fainted dead away."

[As the name suggests, "fainting goats" are goats which, due to a genetic mutation in their muscle fibres, are prone to fainting. According to the Iowa-based International Fainting Goat Association (whose logo is an upside-down splayed-out goat), the unusual breed comes in two categories: premium (those that faint readily) and regular (those that go stiff but do not topple over).]