Yesterday's Chip Paper

This is the story of Giovanni Succi, once the most famous name in Paris completely forgotten today. Succi was a hunger artist, a name given to people from across the world who took part in great feats of fasting. Some cited science as their motive, others entertainment, but the one thing they all knew for certain was that they couldn’t ever lose. Enter Succi, the Italian poster boy of the fasting craze, who was prepared to put everything on the line to defeat his rivals with the help of his magical elixir. Succi made a name for himself as the most famous hunger artist in the world, taking part in a series of deadly challenges well documented by the world press. Also this week, the newspaper origins of IMDB and a trainwreck of a nursery rhyme from Uncle Geoff. Yesterday’s Chip Paper is a fortnightly(ish) history podcast that looks at the weird and the wonderful from the historic newspaper archives. Ever two weeks, Jim and Violet, a pair of trans-atlantic amateur researchers, look at everything from true crime,