STEPHEN LEWIS is smitten by a book of silly facts.

THEY must be putting something in the water at local schools. How else to explain a book by a former deputy head about how to pick out a dinosaur in a bus queue?

The answer, judging by the cover of Andy Seed's wonderfully wacky book, is that the dinosaur - it's a hadrosaur, to be precise - is big, green and has a bony ridge sticking out of the back of its head.

Do we really need to know that? Not at all, chortles Andy. The hadrosaur should usually be pretty obvious.

Before you start worrying that the former deputy head of Stockton-on-the-Forest school has gone bonkers, it's worth reading the label on the front cover of his new book, How To Spot A Hadrosaur In a Bus Queue. "Warning," it reads. "Contains loads of mind-boggling trivia, lists, facts, figures... and other stuff you don't need to know."

Which explains it all. This book is intended as a treasure trove of useless information. A kind of Schott's Miscellany, says Andy, who lives in Amotherby, but aimed at children.

So there is a list of 15 things that don't exist (including tartan paint); ideas for what you can buy with £1m (20,693 miles of fishing line or 150,000 kg of houmous); and a selection of rude or silly UK place names (Wetwang, Fartown and Panty Hill). Then there is the section on essential knowledge. What's blue and ticks? A clockwork nun. What's yellow and white and travels at 140mph? A train driver's egg sandwich.

It is, Andy admits, all silly humour. "The kind of thing I would have found hysterical when I was about eight," he says. He got the idea from Schott's Miscellany. His son was given a copy one Christmas. "And I love it," Andy says. "I like the randomness of it. I thought 'this would be great for children'."

So it has proved. But in case you should think How To Spot A Hadrosaur is all useless information, there is, hidden amid the unusual hobbies for fish (carpentry and collecting china teapots) and the top five causes for broken biscuits (use of axe to open wrapper), some pretty useful stuff too.

There is a list of words that rhyme with 'moo' but don't look like 'moo' (including two, glue, queue and through) that will be great for word-building; a selection of big numbers (which starts at a million and goes up to a vigintillion, or 10 with 63 noughts after it) that will have kids scratching their heads at the bigness of things; and a section on women inventors (yes, there were some).

My own favourite, however is the 'strange, but false' section. It is false, for example, that the Venezualan sloth has a spare foot which it keeps in a bush; and false too that you can test if your great aunt is electric by removing her battery. A joy.

How To Spot A Hadrosaur In A Bus Queue is published by Hodder Headline priced £4.99.

Updated: 15:27 Wednesday, October 13, 2004