From vulva scarves to Prince Andrew 10 of the Guardian's most memorable Pass Notes

Pass Notes requires starting with an age number, which can be easy for well-known people but difficult for topics like bees, office temperatures, peak curtains, or God. The format originated in the Sunday Correspondent, later moved to the Guardian’s G2 print section, was scrapped after redesign, and later returned. The column functions as a crib sheet for the modern world, initially covering what is needed and no more. Over time it evolved into a structure with two voices: one asking questions and one answering them. It is extremely topical, so relevance can be fleeting, and historical examples can preserve evidence of short-lived trends. It aims to answer the question people ask when encountering something new, combining informativeness, humor, and brevity.

"Beginning is often the hardest part: the rigid and long-established format of Pass Notes requires the writer to begin with Age. If the day's subject is Nigella Lawson or Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a number is readily available. If it's Jar Jar Binks, the answer may be obscure but still obtainable (born in 52 BBY before the Battle of Yavin). But what if the subject is bees, or office temperatures, or peak curtains, or God? Some days you get stuck on the first line."

"If the subject was Pass Notes itself, you'd have the same problem: it originated in the short-lived Sunday Correspondent, which ceased operations in 1990. The orphaned idea was then adopted by the Guardian's newly launched G2 print section in 1992, scrapped after a redesign in 2005, and resurrected in 2009. But if we can't put down anything for age, we can still supply a number: 5,000 examples, and counting."

"From the outset, Pass Notes was a crib sheet for the modern world as much as you needed to know about a given topic, and no more but it took a while for the format to evolve into its current structure, with two disembodied voices: the one that asks all the questions, and the one that answers them. For the writer it presents a unique opportunity to unleash one's inner pedant and outer idiot."

"At its best Pass Notes is perfectly of the moment, arriving just in time to answer the question everyone is asking what the hell is this? while being informative, funny and brief. For the writer, however, the distillation process has side effects: one ends up retaining more information about a given subject (coffee pods, transcranial direct curre"

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