Drought is the inherent vice of the climate of Africa, and the frequent destruction of the hopes of the husbandman which occurs from this cause, might have given origin to the function of Rainmaker, among a less superstitious population. […] To procure rain, an ox is killed; the fat of it is chopped and mixed with different kinds of wood and leaves of trees; the whole are then burned. The secret of the business is to gain time by various artifices, until the rainmaker sees clouds arising in that direction from which rain generally comes.

One company in particular, TAE, also played to tens of thousands of schools students in the Northern Territory and Queensland.[…]By the end of 1999, after years of hard yakka and a few too many bump-ins and outs, some full time company members were growing tired - including of being permanently ‘broke’.

So while speaking directly to a celebrated stranger may not be possible without first passing muster with a squad of handlers and publicists, you can do the next best thing: dial the famous person's last listed phone number and talk to the lucky, star-dusted citizen who inherited it.

It has heretofore mainly consisted in the addition of rice, sand, and shop-sweepings, but recently a trade has sprung up in the sale of “poivrette” or “pepperette,” a substance which is made in Italy by grinding olive stones, and is sold in this country at about 1d. a lb., whereas the price of the pepper with which it is mixed is from 8d. to 1s.6d. a lb.