The journalist who threw his shoes at President Bush at a news conference in Baghdad was jailed for three years this week. The sentence prompted The Guardian to do a little digging as to the significance of shoe-throwing in the Middle East. They concluded, wrongly, that shoe-hurling was a biblical form of protest, citing instructions from Jesus about sandal-dusting (Mark 6:9-11) as evidence.

If only this were true. In fact, in the Bible, shoe removal and throwing is usually a sign of a legal claim over property or land (Ruth 4:7; Psalm 60:8). Sometimes, shoe removal is connected with being insulted – but there are no examples of biblical hotheads who threw their shoes at unpopular politicians. Nevertheless, this hasn’t stopped a multitude of programmers devising shoe-hurling games for those who want to join in the fun – without ending up behind bars.