All over realy.
On my mums side, kentish farmers, miners, french shopkeepers (I think?) and a sweedish captain who went down with his ship, accidentaly or not I don't know, he might just have been a bad swimmer! On my dad's side, london criminals and circus performers (My great grandad was capable of tearing telephone directories in half - one of his tricks apparently. God knows why i'm a scrawny little fucker... clearly those genes missed me), Communists (my grandad got the full send off - we sung the red flag at his funeral) trade unionists, and jewish criminals/commies (my great grandad fought in the spanish civil war. When we got some of his effects he had several different passports in different identities) who either ran from austria to escape the pogroms or escape the law. Possibly both. Realy quite fascinating stuff. Shame that some of the stranger ones are either out of contact or dead realy.
(Fredz A graveyard of hopes, a dump of ambition, Wed 15 Jul 2009, 22:52, 1 reply, 16 years ago)

My missus
tore a telephone directory in half, but that was a few years back before they changed the glue on the spine (which prevents you from cracking i to get it started.)
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Wed 15 Jul 2009, 23:12, Reply)

Yeah
Apparently that was how it was often done, breaking the spine and then tearing it. I think he was a circus strongman, and he had a bunch of tricks like that. Another one apparently involved breaking a leather belt that was wrapped around him. I think there must have been a trick to that one too....
(Fredz A graveyard of hopes, a dump of ambition, Thu 16 Jul 2009, 6:51, Reply)