Charles De Gaulle said, “I have come to the conclusion that politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.”

The town of High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire has found a practical solution: It weighs its mayors at the start and end of each term.

Any weight gain is deemed to have been made at taxpayers’ expense, and it’s met with jeers and the occasional tomato.

No one knows how the custom began, but it dates at least from the time of Edward I and apparently was once widespread. Wycombe is the only town in England where it survives.

Phrases you are likely to need in Borneo, to judge from a phrasebook distributed in 1966 by the Borneo Literature Bureau:

• Wait while I remove these leeches.
• I have been bitten by sand flies.
• There are too many rats.
• There are a lot of mosquitoes here.
• The cockroaches have eaten my shirt.
• Is this poisonous?
• What made that noise?
• Is Sibu Laut in a swamp?
• Is there a taboo on your house?
• Is the burning finished?
• Where can I defecate?
• Is that fish dangerous?
• This floor is not safe.
• The roof is leaking.
• There is no room in this boat.
• We must keep dry.
• I can’t come for a time because the monsoon will soon start.
• She has a bad pain/snakebite/gunshot wound.
• Tear some clean cloth into strips.
• Keep him warm.
• Go quickly for help.
• This vomiting needs urgent treatment.
• I do not know what is wrong. You must take her to the clinic.
• Your eyes need treatment, or you will become blind.

More valuable safety lessons for your children, from The Book of Accidents (1831):

“Little children who can just reach to the top of a table, often endeavor to drink from the spout of a tea-pot; and in consequence scald their mouths and throats, and die miserable deaths in a few hours.”

“Wicked and malicious boys often throw stones, by which they not only hurt and maim one another, but often knock out an eye and are disfigured for life.”

“Hundreds of children are killed every year by leaning out of windows. … In another moment [this little girl] may be dashed upon the rocky pavement below, to be picked up by her parents a mangled corpse.”

Bonus parable: “The writer knows of a little boy who was very fond of being in the kitchen, that he might see how Johnny-cakes and pies, and all such things were made, and from his talkativeness occasioned considerable trouble. In the absence of the cook for a short time, what should he do but go and sit himself down into a kettle of boiling hot water! His screams soon brought his mother, and with difficulty his life was saved.”