In Forrest Gump, Gump runs for 3 years and 2 months. In Be Kind Rewind, Jack Black becomes magnetised. In Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, Mr Creosote eats so much he bursts. In Withnail and I, Withnail drinks lighter fuel and survives. In Twister, a tornado picks up a petrol tanker. Hollywood is notorious for playing fast and loose with the laws of man and nature. But does it really deserve its reputation for mangling reality? In DEATH BY CHILI SAUCE, film fanatic and amateur sleuth extraordinaire Richard Germain asks the question 'Could that really happen?' of 101 well-known -- and apparently far-fetched ? cinematic events. The result is a fascinating voyage of discovery, during which the truth is time and again revealed to be just as weird and wonderful as the movies ? and much funnier. There's the supposedly magnetic Romanian Aurel Raileanu, who managed to hoodwink the Sun newspaper until his powers of attraction mysteriously disappeared upon the application of talcum powder (turned out he was just sticky); great Dane Jesper Olsen, real-life Gump, who is currently half way through a 40,000 kilometre run and says: 'I think that the ability to run incomprehensible distances is a thing we all share as humans'; the chilli that is so hot it can kill you; and much else besides ? including an exhaustive investigation into the efficacy of Coughlin's 'Red Eye' hangover cure, as featured in Cocktail. AUTHOR: Richard Germain was born in 1973 and watched his first James Bond film (Goldfinger) on his second birthday and has never looked back. Can A Swallow Carry A Coconut? is his first book.
