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

As the series reaches its 5,000th entry, one of its regular writers reveals what it’s like to put together this cribsheet of the modern world – and the bizarre topics he’s never been able to forget

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 Erdoğan, 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.