Smith Journal # 13

Volume 13 is crammed with more than its fair share of sharp minds. Top of the list would have to be Solomon Shereshevsky, who remembered every single thing he’d ever come across – a great skill to have when it came to party tricks, but enough to send him crackers.

And then there’s Delbert Trew who spends more time than you can imagine thinking about something very sharp indeed: barbed wire. You can’t go past Samuel Morse, either, who was a famous portrait painter before he gave his name to the code he invented. What a genius!

And we’re pretty taken with Noel Turner, who was smart enough to get around some pretty weird New Zealand laws to invent a car that, for a while, was a huge success.

Allan Cox might be the king of Australian putt putt golf, but we’ll also give him the prize for concentration and perseverance. He shot the highest number of hole-in-ones over a 24-hour period: an impressive 1516 before his legs gave out.

As well, you’ll find stories on a cross-dressing spy, a couple of Sydney nerds who revolutionised modern music, court illustration, big wheels, the dubious science of controlling the weather and a whole stack of other stuff.

We’ve packed so many ripping yarns and interesting facts in, you may as well think of it as your fascinating uncle in magazine form.