The young Churchill was one day taken to P. T. Barnum's celebrated circus, which contained an exhibition of freaks and monstrosities. "But the exhibit on the programme which I most desired to see," Churchill recalled, "was the one described as 'The Boneless Wonder'. My parents judged that that spectacle would be too revolting and demoralizing for my youthful eyes, and I have waited 50 years to see the boneless wonder sitting on the Treasury Bench."

[The Boneless Wonder in question? The future prime minister Ramsay MacDonald, of whom Churchill later remarked: "We know that he has, more than any other man, the gift of compressing the largest amount of words into the smallest amount of thought."]

["In February 1998, a bearded lady and her female friend were fatally shot in a Portland, Oregon, karaoke bar. The reason? The gunman allegedly had a relationship with the nonbearded woman and was jealous because he thought that the poor bearded lady was a guy putting the moves on his lover."]