The Guardian has compiled a list of the greatest interviews of all time, plus some of the more interesting things that happened when the tape was no longer rolling. This week, we’re offering a up a few highlights from the series.

The interview took place while Diana was still Her Royal Highness, but just barely: She and Prince Charles separated in 1992 and would divorce in August 1996. The fairy tale marriage that began with a gloriously massive ceremony at Westminster Abbey in July 1981 had by now devolved into bitter acrimony played out in the press — and the BBC interview, aired in November 1995, was a cornerstone of Diana’s offensive tactics.

Martin Bashir, who would later famously interview the Prince of Pop, Michael Jackson, coaxed from Diana a candid description of the suffocation of life as Princess of Wales — although it didn’t seem to take much coaxing. With great wounded Disney eyes, Diana spoke candidly about the difficulties playing the fairy tale, about her battle with postpartum depression and bulimia, and about her struggles with the Royal family and her husband, who had by now admitted that he’d had an affair.

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As contemporary and forward-thinking as today’s commercials and sitcoms purport to be when it comes to referencing that “time of the month,” not one of them is bold enough to use the biologically-correct term of “menstruation.” And while this column will most likely squick out a lot of readers, there might be just as many who will nod their heads in affirmation.

The Most Humiliating Purchase

Long before maxi pads were flapping their adhesive “wings” on TV to entice you to buy their brand, feminine products were considered a dirty little secret. In fact, up until the late 1950s, they were stowed behind the counter at drug stores and were sold as surreptitiously as condoms. Women had to ask the (usually male) pharmacist or cashier for a package of Modess (the major brand at the time). Not only did females have to go through the humiliation of personally requesting the product, they also had to lug that huge box wrapped in its distinctive blue wrapper–which was often too big to fit into a shopping bag and announced itself loud and clear to the other passengers on the bus or streetcar–all the way home.

You Can’t Do That on Television

The advertising of feminine products was restricted to print ads (usually in women’s or teen-oriented magazines) until the early 1970s. (more…)

There are 9 teams in the four major American sports (NBA, NFL, NHL and MLB) with nicknames that don’t end in an ‘s.’ How many can you name in three minutes?

Two readers suggested this quiz – Bill Smith and Christi Larkins. I believe Mr. Smith is an up-and-comer in the athletic department of the University of Arkansas. I don’t know Ms. Larkins’ claim to fame, but we’re glad she’s sharing her quizzes with us.

Take the Quiz: Team Names That Don’t End With ‘S’

I have no sense of smell, and I think I might have Restless Leg Syndrome. As weird as those things may be, they doesn’t even hold a candle to these other afflictions. Do you know anyone who suffers from any of them? Know of one that’s stranger than these? Let us know in the comments!

1. Exploding Head Syndrome. We’ve covered EHS on the floss before. It happens a couple of hours after the person falls asleep and wake up because of an extremely loud explosion noise coming from inside their own heads. It is not the result of a dream, however. Some physicians think it’s a sign of stress and fatigue.

2. Dancing Mania. It sounds like one of those old dance shows from the ‘50s, like American Bandstandor the Corny Collins Show (yes, I know that wasn’t a real show). But Dancing Mania is a real condition that killed thousands of people between the 14th and 18th centuries. People twitched and “danced” and spasmed even when they were too tired to stand; those afflicted were thought to be possessed by the devil and violent exorcisms were held to try to free them. We’re still not sure what caused Dancing Mania, although there are several theories out there. One includes eating rye bread which has been infected by a fungus that contains some of the same substances that LSD contains, so it’s possible that people with Dancing Mania were just on a really bad (or good?) trip.

3. Laughter Epidemic. In 1962, an outbreak of mass hysteria, now called the Tanganyika laughter epidemic, swept the village of Kashasha in Tanzania. According to American Scientist, a group of schoolgirls started laughing over some silly joke and infected everyone around them. It was so bad that schools had to close for six months. People were laughing even when they didn’t want to and even started fainting and breaking out in rashes. But it died down almost as quickly as it started, and there have been no reports of anything even close to the same scale since.

4. Genital Retraction Syndrome. People who have this think that their genitals are shrinking or even actually retracting back into their bodies. (more…)

College admissions are competitive, and not just from the student’s side. Sure, sometimes it’s hard to get into the college of your choice, but the schools are fighting just as hard to lure in top applicants. While some colleges boast about class sizes, graduate fellowships, and endowment growth rates, this sort of info is likely to bore the 17-year-old students they’re wooing. Instead, some schools try to come up with unique perks that appeal to students, often in the form of free services.

While the cost of these “free” perks is undoubtedly built back into tuition bills, when a family’s spending upwards of $40,000 a year for school, it can’t hurt to help them feel like they’re getting something for nothing. Here are a few you might be jealous of:

1. Free Laundry

Nothing’s more maddening for a college student than wanting to study, party, or sleep, only to be confronted with a massive mound of laundry. Most of us know that if left unchecked, these piles of dirty clothes can grow until they’re on the brink of becoming sentient beings, but students at Davidson, an elite liberal arts college in North Carolina, don’t have to worry about it. Their college does the laundry for them.

Since 1919, Davidson has been operating a laundry facility that allows students to drop off their laundry and pick it up once its clean and smelling of dryer sheets. At the Lula Bell Houston Laundry, students’ dress shirts and blouses are even pressed and put on hangers for them. The laundry clears about six tons’ worth of dirty clothes and linens a week, but if students prefer to keep their filthy t-shirts to themselves, the school also offers free self-service washers and dryers in the dorms.

As if that’s not enough, Davidson was even more generous when its basketball team made a miraculous run to the NCAA’s Sweet 16 last March. The school shelled out the cash for free bus transport to the venue in Detroit, two nights’ lodging, and a free ticket to the game for any student who wanted to go cheer on their Cinderella in person.

2. Free Skiing

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Despite the number of paranormal investigation reality shows on the air these days — which I’d wager have been multiplying recently more because they’re inexpensive to produce than because paranormal activity is on the rise — it seems like sightings are on the decline. The Guardian ran an article a few years ago to that effect, and cited some interesting facts:

• Nessie sightings are down.

Since the first modern sighting in 1933, Nessie-watchers have been able to rely on about 15-20 reported sightings a year, with occasional paranormal peaks of up to 40. In 2004 the official Loch Ness Monster fan club admitted that in the preceding 18 months they had heard of a meagre three spottings. “There has been an unusually low number of sightings, all of which were made by local people,” admits Gary Campbell, club president. “It appears that no tourists at all have seen anything unusual.”

• Hauntings are on the wane.

Tony Cornell is a vice-president of the Society for Psychical Research, the UK’s most prestigious ghost-busting association. Cornell has been investigating ghosts for 50 years but hasn’t been using his £8,000 of poltergeist-detecting equipment of late. “The society used to get maybe 60 to 80 reports of ghosts in a year,” he says. “Now we get none. None at all. A remarkable decline. It is still very strange.”

• UFOs aren’t stopping by as often.

Bufora, the top UK forum for skywatchers, ruefully admitted that UFO sightings have been in “steady decline” since the late 1990s. Most striking of all, the British Flying Saucer Bureau has suspended its activities, because the number of sightings has crashed from a peak of around 30 a week to almost zero. Denis Plunkett, the retired civil servant from Bristol who founded the bureau in 1953, says: “I am just as enthusiastic about flying saucers as I always was, but the problem is that we are in the middle of a long, long trough. There just aren’t enough new sightings.” (more…)

With news of the Arrested Development movie finally starting to look good, I thought it was time for another Arrested Development quiz. Using a family tree, I identified 12 members of the Bluth family that we saw on the show. This includes spouses, adopted children and any form of blood tie. Can you name all 12 Bluths in 4 minutes?

Take the Quiz: Name the Bluths

We’re back with another 5-day trivia hunt!

Again, the rules: Every remaining day this week, I’ll be presenting a specific challenge. Your job: come up with the answers and hold onto them! Why? Because on Monday, next week, you’ll need them to solve a short puzzle. The first person to email in the correct answers and successfully show how you arrived at them (thus the title: How Did You Know?) wins a choice of any TWO t-shirts and book from our store. In addition to the above, we’ll be awarding a t-shirt to one random winner who has all the correct answers. So even if you’re not the first one with the right answers, there’s still a chance to wind up a winner on HDYK?

And remember, we’re also giving away a really big, sa-weeet prize to any winning contestant who can defend the title three months in a row. Peter Dapier and Patrick Corrado are our current champions. You can read about them here.

As with previous How Did You Know? posts, comments have been turned off, but I definitely encourage you to work in teams like our present champions did. Write your friends, send around each daily challenge, conspire, work together, whatever it takes to make sure you’re armed with the right answers going into next Monday’s puzzle. (Questions? drop us an e-mail at: TriviaHunt@Gmail.com)

If you missed Day 1, be sure to check it out here. Day 2 can be found this-a-way.

Today we’re playing Name That Fictional Band. On the following page you’ll find six fictional bands from TV shows or movies, camouflaged. The letters of each band name are in order from left to right. You just have to clear away the unneeded letters in the row in order to see the correct words. To help you, I’ve provided six visual clues on the pages following the puzzle. If you need them, use them.

See you back for your fourth challenge tomorrow…

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Every year, Duck brand duct tape sponsors a contest called Stuck at Prom, in which high school students design and create their own prom attire using duct tape. Who wants to wear duct tape to their prom? Anyone who wants to win scholarship money! The couple who wins first prize gets a $3,000 scholarship each, plus their school gets another $3,000. Second and third places pay well also.

The first competition was in 2001. Sarah Silva and Mitch Houseman of Arroyo Grande, California wore this lovely coordinated ensemble made of yellow and black duct tape. They said it took 40 $hours to make these outfits; I would have guessed it took much longer. The couple split $5,000 in scholarship money.

Duct tape fashion, or even formal wear, is not limited to the prom. Even when no prize is on the line, people love to make things out of it. Walter Chang has made quite a few coats and accessories out of duct tape. He made this ensemble for himself and his date for the Class of 2002/2003 Winter Semi-Formal. He models other duct tape creations at his website.

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The latest issue of mental_floss just hit newsstands. Rosemary Ahern’s cover story chronicles ‘The 25 Most Influential Books of the Past 25 Years.’ This week, we’ll be revealing five of those influential books here on the blog. And if this puts you in a subscribing mood, here are the details.

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

by Haruki Murakami (1994)

The Book That Lost Nothing in Translation

If there’s one author who bridges the cultural divide between the United States and Japan, it’s Haruki Murakami. The 60-year-old Kyoto native started writing relatively late in life, at age 29, and it was America’s national pastime that inspired him. While attending a baseball game in Tokyo, Murakami saw American Dave Hilton hit a home run. At that precise moment, a feeling of warmth spread across his body, and he had a revelation: He needed to write. On his way home, Murakami bought a fountain pen and some paper. Six months later, he’d completed his first novel.

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