Simon Kerslake was the Tory candidate for prime minister in the (excellent, IMHO) 1984 British political novel First Among Equals. A different candidate won in the British and American editions, author Jeffrey Archer later explained, because he found that readers in each country were rooting for different men.
Archer’s later novel Sons of Fortune, largely a self-plagiarization of First Among Equals, deals with twin brothers separated at birth who run against each other for Governor of Connecticut. The story is jarring to an American reader in part because primary elections in various towns are major plot points.
Hank Morgan, a munitions factory foreman, is the title character of Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.
Maine Yankee, Vermont Yankee, and Yankee Pilgrim were all nuclear power plants, owned by what is now Entergy, that have either been shut down or had their licenses nonrenewed for various safety-related issues.
The religious group known in history classes as the Pilgrims are still practicing in the US as the Congregationalist Church (and the Brock family in Picket Fences were members of it).
The play the basketball team of tiny Hickory High School used to win the Indiana state championship in the film Hoosiers, which returned to prominence due to Butler’s run in the NCAA tourney, was called the Picket Fence.
The last words of Carl Panzram, a 1920s style [del]death ray[/del]serial killer, were aimed at his hangman. I quote : “Hurry up, you Hoosier bastard ! I could kill ten men while you’re fooling around !”.
Nevermind
Fool Around With is a British reality TV show, where four women or men are locked up together with a single person, who tries to determine which of the four contestants is also single; the other three contestants have boyfriends or girlfriends. If the lone single person figures out which of the four contestants is also single, the person wins £10,000.
A British reality TV show, 2005’s Space Cadets, featured contestants being fooled into thinking they had won a trip into space. Their experiences included “training” at a “Russian” space center (actually in England), and a four-day mission aboard a wooden “shuttle” with actor pilots.
U.S. national security advisor, and later Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger’s frequent trips to the Middle East in the Seventies was often referred to as “shuttle diplomacy.”
Judah Benjamin, a Jewish lawyer from New Orleans, served as Attorney General, Secretary of War, and Secretary of State for the Confederate States of America.
Haile Selassie’s full title in office was “His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie I, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah, and Elect of God”. He is revered as God incarnate, or “Jah”, by adherents of Rastafari.
Many Rastafari are either vegan or vegetarian, and also consider alcohol unhealthy.
The alien Ferengi are said to have invented synthehol on Star Trek: The Next Generation. The beverage produces an alcoholic buzz that can be shaken off voluntarily by the drinker.
The name Ferengi was borrowed from the Farsi word for a western European person, “Farangi”, from “Frankish”. The Persians’ first encounter with western Europeans was with Frankish Crusaders during the reign of Charlemagne.
According to Star Trek canon, there are 285 Ferengi Rules of Aquisition by the 24th century.
The Ferengi were originally created early in TNG to be the primary bad guys (until they realized how ridiculous a notion that would be.)
In My Little Chickadee, Cuthbert J. Twilly’s business cards say he sells “Novelties and Notions.”
Actress Elisha Cuthbert’s history of dating multiple NHL players led one of them, Sean Avery, to get into serious trouble by publicly calling her “sloppy seconds”.