Dawn Chorus: The Secret of GK Chesterton, the owl-saving hero who's breaking the internet, and our Quiz of the Day

Getting if off your Chest(ertron)

We came across a his nice house for sale — at £4.75 million via Hamptons — this week, and noticed in the details that it was once the home of GK Chesterton, the author who created Father Brown.

Nice, isn't it? We're big fans.

So we dug in to the details and discovered that the writer had originally rented a house in Beaconsfield which overlooked what, back then, was a pristine meadow. He snapped the land up, engaged and architect and the result is the lovely Arts-and-Crafts home you see on this page, where he lived happily for the rest of his life.

A lovely story in itself, but even better when — as we went down the rabbit hole — we read stories about Chesterton and his famous friends, almost all of whom came to visit. George Bernard Shaw, Bertrand Russell, HG Wells all showed up, and loved to debate with their host about history, philosophy, politics... all the usual good stuff.

It was then that we came across a story of an exchange between the tall, skinny Shaw, and Chesterton, who was tall but decidedly not skinny. Not skinny at all, in fact: he's said to have tipped the scales at 20 stone — the equivalent of around 300lb or roughly 135kg — and may even have been far more, according to the Society of GK Chesterton. (PG Wodehouse once used this fact in his own comic imagery, describing an incredibly loud noise as sounding 'like G.K. Chesterton falling on a sheet of tin'.)

'To look at you, anyone would think a famine had struck England,' Chesterton once goaded Shaw. The playwright's retort was priceless: 'To look at you, anyone would think you had caused it.'

Not PC perhaps, but that's banter in Beaconsfield for you — or at least it was a century ago — and I doubt anyone reading his brilliant words would care a jot, considering he was a writer (and thinker) of such insightful brilliance that he is credited with having converted a young, atheistic CS Lewis into arguably the most influential Christian author of the 20th century.

Quiz of the Day

1) A papal cross has how many horizontal sections?

2) ‘Hale knew, before he had been in Brighton three hours, that they meant to murder him’ is the opening sentence of which Graham Greene novel?

3) Which fruit comes from the tropical plant Ananas comosus?

4) ‘The House at the Back’ was one of three houses combined to form which prestigious London address?

5) Whisky, oatmeal, honey and sometimes cream are the ingredients of which Scottish liqueur?

Quiz answers down below

The owl saviour breaking the internet

Sometimes the internet makes us despair of the future of mankind. And then someone uses it to share a video like this, and all is forgiven:

How to beat your family at Risk

The only time I ever played I was thrown out of the game for my lack of patience. But if you are made of sterner stuff, you'll need Harry Pearson's guide on how to win at Risk.

'One of the greatest acts of cultural vandalism Britain has ever seen

In case you missed it back in October, we were reminded of this brilliant piece by Martin Fone on the destruction of Euston Station. Utterly fascinating.

That's it for 2024 — Merry Christmas everyone, we're back in January

Quiz answers

1) Three

2) Brighton Rock

3) Pineapple

4) 10, Downing Street

5) Atholl Brose