The oil magnate John Gates once placed an $11,000 bet with the wealthy John Drake (whose family had founded Drake University) that his bread, dunked in coffee, would attract more flies than Drake's. Gates won.

It later emerged that he had added six spoonfuls of sugar to his coffee.

[In August 2003, 40,000 colour-coded flies were released in Stewartfield, Scotland, in order to settle a dispute between residents and city-council officials over whether a local landfill was causing summer insect infestations. (Daily Telegraph)]