Thursday 29 January 2009

49 HUMOUR/JOKES/THE WORLDS FUNNIEST JOKE

It is possible to define the funniest joke in the World, despite all the cultural diversity, the many different types of humour and the myriad language barriers. Gupta Sing-Bali, wrote the World’s funniest joke in Brest, France in 1841. Being the only Indian in this Brittany naval port, Gupta had to develop an acute sense of humour in order to survive. He originally tried opening a Take–Away Restaurant, but misjudged the French passion for haute cuisine, and was almost beaten to death for serving Oysters Vindaloo with a dessert wine. As he lay recovering from his wounds he had an epiphany and realised the divine comedy. Fortunately, Gupta understood the power of slapstick and didn’t go the route of Dante. He replaced Paradise with Parody, Inferno with Innuendo and Purgatory with Absurdity, making for a much funnier read. Unfortunately, his efforts were so good, Mr Sing-Bali, all the patients and the entire nursing staff of the Brest Hospital died laughing when he told the one about the duck who eats monkeys. Divine comedy indeed.

Wednesday 28 January 2009

48 HUMANITY/GENERAL STUPIDITY/RACIAL HATRED

Up until March 29th 1983, all colours, creeds, religions and castes had indeed lived together in perfect harmony, tolerating and appreciating each other’s beliefs and diversities with interest and fervour. However, such was the utter contempt and horror at Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney’s appallingly sycophantic collaboration ‘Ebony and Ivory’ that within twelve minutes of its first airing on national television, the worlds first known race riots broke out simultaneously in Los Angeles, Oldham, Somalia, Brixton, South Africa, Texas and most of Eastern Europe. The songs co-producer Andy McFluffer, life-long member of far right-wing underground political party, The Barnsley Supremacists, has since been awarded multiple accolades by Campaign magazine for one of the greatest marketing coups of all time.
Such was the escalated sensitivity surrounding music and its new-found possible link to racial bloodshed that just two weeks later, during a live performance on middle eastern TV favourite, Shalom of the Pops, the thus-far tranquil continent was instantly thrown into infinite military instability the moment Kazakhstan’s most celebrated comedian cum songwriter uttered the words to the chorus of his highly awaited new release.
Most historians believe it a little harsh to lay the blame for an entire territory’s political problems on a simple singing light entertainer. Others, however, admit that the moment they heard Mohammad ‘Chubby’ Ali gaily holler the words ‘Allah, Allah, who the f*ck is Allah’ they feared the worst.

Tuesday 27 January 2009

47 LANGUAGE/GRAMMAR/COLLECTIVE NOUNS

Some collective nouns are mundane, for example ‘a bunch of bananas’. Some however are inspired, like ‘a murder of crows’ or ‘an ambush of widows’. Most have been lost to time and some have been banned. ‘A feltch of homosexuals’ dropped out of common parlance in 1984, due largely to the rise of the Aids epidemic and a distancing from unsavoury practices. ‘A munch of Lezzers’ however is still widely used in North Wales and parts of Shropshire. ‘A twitch of Spastics’, ‘a hastiness of Flyds’ and ‘an arsecunt of Tourette Sydrome sufferers’ never caught on due to people’s general reluctance to embrace the issues involved. ‘A tackle of Trannies’ is commonly applied but only in specialist circles.
Both midgets and dwarves demand the exclusive right to ‘Pantheon’, a feud that has lasted centuries. The Midgets think the Dwarves should have ‘shrubbery’ and the Dwarves think it should be ‘a clump of Midgets’. Understandably, their choice of collective nouns for each other has only escalated the tension. It culminated in the Dwigit wars of 1905 where millions of little people were killed by circus cannons, collapsing clown cars and when the confetti from the ‘bucket of water’ gag was replaced with anthrax. Pedantic nomenclature caused such futility.
Surprisingly, the collective noun for collective nouns is ‘a Mavis’. No one knows why.

Monday 26 January 2009

46 FIGHTERS OF THE UNIVERSE/THE BEST FIGHTERS/THE BRITISH

The British are the best fighting race in the Universe. This doesn’t mean they are dangerous. Lovely sense of humour and brilliant raconteurs; when they conquered the world they painted all maps pink, to tell the losing nations that they fought like girls. They view fighting not as conflict but more of an entertainment, like a dance. Every dancer needs a partner and as war is traditionally a very male domain, the Scottish wear skirts and makeup to address the shortage of ladies in a fight. The Welsh will often put vegetables on their heads to give the others a laugh when the going gets tough.
The British take fighting very seriously. They had the choice of any land in which to settle, and chose a cramped, damp island with long dark winters and miserable wet summers to keep them hard. When it became apparent that terrorism was a tricky form of fighting the Irish split themselves in two in order to practice. Even when relaxing the British are training for a scrap. The British Pub is in fact a Battle Gym. The English have made themselves immune to chemical warfare by drinking real ale, eating pickled eggs and breathing toxic fumes. Darts, better than a knife, got range and if dipped into a pint of Old Bishop’s Nostril becomes an instant poison arrow. Pool, good for ballistics and pressure points. Pub ashtrays are impossibly heavy and made of glass for a reason, training.
Americans can’t figure out why the British civilians are unarmed. Simple, guns are not necessary when you are that tasty. If you want to win a war get the British on your side. The Americans at least understand that much.

45 INVENTIONS/BAD INVENTIONS/POLITICAL CORRECTNESS

Political Correctness (PC) is a form of intellectual bullying. Some people simply are not blessed with the ability to think up imaginative, nice sounding phrases like ‘Motorially Challenged People’ and find the expression ‘Spastic’ easier to remember. Others have trouble pronouncing the words and find ‘Spasmo’ less effort to blurt out, especially motorially challenged people.
Some PC words are too cold and clinical. Lezzer is an expression that is warm and embracing; it suggests action, some one who is lezzing. Lesbian sounds passive and lugubrious in comparison. The same axiom applies to knob jockey and homosexual.
The PC way to deal with someone who doesn’t agree with you, is either to get lawyers involved, or invade them. Both solutions are very expensive. Soon all Saturday night pub brawls will be resolved with legal teams and BLU82 Daisy Cutter bombs. The phrase ‘Leave it John, he ain’t worth it’ will soon be replaced with ‘My council has issued you a ten point ultimatum. Non compliance will result in an all out nuclear strike.’ Queue jumpers beware.

Saturday 24 January 2009

44 INVENTIONS/MARVELLOUS INVENTIONS/RONDABOUTS

The Roundabout is the Richard Feynman of road junctions, a brilliant problem solver and sexually liberal. They simultaneously reduce collisions, injuries and fatalities whilst providing an area for copulation by exhibitionists.
Many geometries were initially tried; the triangle-about wasn’t as good and the square-about was too German. None were so successful as the round.
Percy Perkins, a philosopher and town planner in Leicester, toyed with the ideas of the point-about and the line-about. His colleagues would argue that these were just the same things as roads, but Percy would draw upon the subtleties of Euclid’s Elements to demonstrate their validity. In a moment of exasperation they finally agreed to his Pentagram-about, if he promised to give the Euclidian metaphysics a rest. But little did they know that Percy was a particularly nasty Satanist bent on summoning the anti-Christ on the A607 to Melton Mowbray. The confusion, angst and rage caused by the ten-sided junction, created enormous amounts of negative energy. The Earth began to crack and Hell spawn prepared to enter our realm. Fortunately, the Nation noticed that the Mowbray pork pies were running low, due to delivery lorries getting lost in the pentagram. The county council of Leicester, in an unprecedented act of efficiency, quickly replaced the Pentagram with a Round. The Earth closed crushing the demons and normal pork pie percolation resumed.
Never underestimate the power of the pie.

Wednesday 21 January 2009

43 SCIENCE/UNITS OF MEASUREMENT/INCHES

The inch is a thinly used imperial unit of measurement, used to scale only three things known to man; vinyl based music recordings, rainfall and penises. It was widely thought by the world’s foremost science scholars and metaphysicists that the inch would disappear completely once the sun slowly supernovas and scorches the earth to a crisp, digital downloading takes over the music industry and someone invents the metric cock. However, a ancient secret pact was made by Peter Pleater, a 14th century window-blind salesmen from Olde York town to the sacred master of the Inch that he would create a sect which would never allow the use of the Inch to deprecate. This sect, he promised, would pass down through his family forever, thus creating an infinite future for the measurement unit. In return for this commitment, he would be given the secret of how to create the pull mechanism on a Venetian blind. In a moment of genius, Pleater came up with a way of securing this pact without the risk of passing the secret verbally down through his family, and by simply training his children into two separate employment paths. At the last census, every one of Pleaters 18793 descendants now work as stubborn market stall holders or interracial porn website designers. The Inch will be safe forever.

Tuesday 20 January 2009

42 HISTORY/TRADITIONS/WELLS

Wells were designed to slowly drown inquisitive children. Although this sounds alarmingly harsh, inquisitive children were seen as pests in the Middle Ages, questioning the clergy on topics such as dinosaurs, the outer universe and the purpose of the feltch. Wells were put in large flowing fields miles from anywhere, alongside bags of mysteriously good quality pornographic material left to tempt the children even more. The bags were removed shortly after however when thirty percent of the country’s clergy also ended up down wells. The routine of child murdering still goes on to this day, although the disused Second World War bomb shelter is used in preference to the well in most cases. Well sympathisers still to this day lay down bags of Razzles and Escorts on railway sidings as a testament to this tradition. No one knows who these people are.
If you play the Beatles white album backwards you will hear the cry of a five year old boy whose cries were accidentally fired into space by a freak katabatic, returning 500 years later, drifting down the chimney of Paul McCartney’s Liverpool residence during an early Christmas members-only performance of the Quarrymen. The PRS are following the rumour up and will pay the murdered child’s parents ancestors £80M back pay for radio play should anyone come forward. Pete Best may not apply.

Monday 19 January 2009

41 PUZZLES/MYSTERIES/OMNIPOTENCE PARADOX

Could an omnipotent being create a rock that it could not lift? There are numerous ways to tackle this one. Accidental omnipotence, where the omnipotent being creates the rock, cannot lift it and becomes non-omnipotent. Essential omnipotence, where it is impossible for the being to be non-omnipotent and cannot do what is logically impossible and so has a nice sit down and a cup of tea instead. Logically impossible omnipotence, where the being can do the impossible, so creates a stone it cannot lift but lifts it anyway just to show who the fuck he is. All worthy attempts but miss the point of omnipotence.
To be omnipotent means to have unlimited power. So when a being creates a rock he cannot lift he creates it, doesn’t lift it, sits down has a cuppa, then lifts it. He then asks himself a question he cannot answer and at he same time makes a cup of tea so hot he cannot drink it. But drinks it anyway. Then answers that tricky question from before. He then goes on to prove that, although he loves everyone and everything, he can create something that is impossible to love. These beings are not very popular and rarely worshipped because they are too busy showing off to do anything really useful like create abundance, peace and love for all. However, a few have slipped through the net and reside in Worlds where the inhabitants like playing golf, tuning bagpipes and listening to the impossible to love Cold Play.

40 ELECTRONICS/MUSIC/iPODS

Devastated by the loss of his partner Alan Barton in 1995, and as a result of a promise made to him on his deathbed, Colin Routh, the other half of pop duo Black Lace, invented the iPod. In order to disguise his plan from dark forces Colin gave the idea to Apple in 2001. When more than 51% of the world’s population is listening to the iPod simultaneously, a special Black Lace hidden program will be activated and ‘Agadoo’ will be played. The inability of any human to resist humming this tune will result in the remaining 49% of the world’s population to be caught off guard and join in. Soon everyone will have the uncontrollable desire to go to the LA Showbar at the Beverly Hills Club in Tenerife, where Colin will be waiting. On this great and momentous day DJ Routh will lead the world in the rave to end all raves. Everyone will be pushing pineapples and shaking trees, the entire World will be The Music Man; all nations will do the Superman. The orgiastic spectacle will culminate in a mass action of the Birdie Song, and a special Routh and Barton rendition of the Hokey-Cokey will thank all the old timers for making the effort and turning up. With a renewed sense of not taking themselves too seriously the World will unite in love and harmony. Peace will last for a thousand years.

Friday 16 January 2009

39 SOCIAL EVENTS/GATHERINGS/DINNER PARTIES

Men should be excluded from dinner parties. They don’t like them. Judy Chicago, the feminist artist, had the right idea to just invite women. She got very close to the perfect dinner party with the triangular table and 39 guests. If she replaced Amazon with Jordan, Eleanor of Aquitaine with Vivien of Emmerdale and Emily Dickinson with David Dickinson, then she’d have a beauty. David would be fine, he could hold his own, exchanging make up tips, and talking antiques with the Primordial Goddess. He’d like that.
All women make excellent dinner party guests. If you are male and want to be a good invitee discuss sex, religion and politics. Drink lots and swear. Only use the C word at the end though, preferably as you fumble for your car keys and drop them down the drain. This will guarantee you a revisit because everyone likes a social sacrificial anode. A good guest never talks about soft furnishings, uses the correct cutlery or flushes the loo. Always wear light coloured trousers and a blue shirt, these display stains to full effect. Always draw attention to the groin stains and never try and blame an over zealous tap. Take credit for any bad smells. Complement the cook on a fine meal by falling asleep behind a sofa. Never apologise.

Thursday 15 January 2009

38 PUZZLES/MYSTERIES/CHICKEN AND THE EGG

The chicken came first. You cannot have an egg without a chicken. But you cannot have a chicken without an egg. This is a familiar philosophical debate in any nursing home. Normally that is as far as it gets, before the folks start talking about soap operas and the price of cat food, or the Alzheimer patients get involved. Which is a shame because the next logical step is to surmise that they both came first. And last. Which is the correct answer.
The Chegg was half bird half ovum, essentially an egg with wings. Evolutionary wise a complete disaster. The Chegg could fly but landing was impossible without offering itself up as an omelette. It couldn’t feed properly; pecking at seed was fraught with danger. Mating was ridiculous, shell and albumen coated feathers everywhere. This calciferous aviator had to evolve fast or face extinction. So the egg part went one way and the bird part the other. This type of evolutionary step can be seen everywhere. A modern day example is the Spice Girls or any Government.
The Chegg grew from an egg. The more correct question is which came first, the Chegg or the egg? And of course the answer to that is obvious.

Wednesday 14 January 2009

37 MIND CONTROL/HYPNOTISM/BREASTS

In 1994 two philosopher’s, Peter Swinehund and Bernie Backschlag, sat in Nina’s Coffee Cup on the Old Kent Road. They had been pondering the meaning of life for 8 hours. Drawing on their expert knowledge of aesthetics, logic, metaphysics and epistemology they were on the cusps of solving the ultimate mystery. Just then a young lady sporting a tight fitting halter neck top walked past:
PS: So if as you say the reason for the generic vibration is membrane flow across capacitor ordinance, then it implies the answer to be…Jesus! Look at the cans on that. Swinging like a punch drunk boxer.
BB: Yes exactly capacitor ordinance will reverse the rumination and… Blimey! Oscillating like two ocelots fighting over an owl.
Twenty minutes silence followed. Finally:
PS: What were we talking about?
BB: Dunno. Football?
Breasts are the most powerful hypnotic in the world. All stage hypnotists have breasts and wear halter-tops, even the males. Look closely and you will see them shimmy their chest whilst inducting their victims.
Most chairmen of large companies enjoy a big lunch. This is to develop man breasts so they can hypnotise their subordinates and shareholders and get away with ludicrous policy decisions.
Hitler had a huge pair and used them to devastating effect. The Geneva Convention banned the Hitler-Halter in 1946, considering it more dangerous than chemical, biological and nuclear weapons combined.

Tuesday 13 January 2009

36 EVIL/ABSOLUTE EVIL/COLD PLAY

Whilst shaving, Satan looked in the mirror and finally confessed to himself that the Fire and Brimstone angle wasn’t really working. The innate goodness of Man was surviving. He called an emergency convocation and all the devils and minions of Hell did some crucial blue skying, thought outside the box, pushed the envelope, got on the same page, touched base offline. There were loops, 360 feedback, low hanging fruit, 3 way streets, big thinking, parking on line and by close of play they came up with the concept of Cold Play. This is the band that encourages people to play golf, join the Freemasons and offer Battenburg cake to small children. The constant whining, the misery, the affectations acts like a virus that has spawned many copycat bands. Fortunately God foresaw this plague and gave us ten fingers. Whenever someone creates a Coldplayesque dirge, that person is compelled to cut his finger off to teach himself a lesson. It is a very powerful evil, which is why He, in his infinite wisdom, gave us 10 chances. If all ten are lost then that person will not be able to play the guitar or piano and the spell is broken. Satan is really evil and has foreseen this, so included in the virus the urge to play wind instruments if all digits are missing, particularly the bagpipes. But God is book smart, and has programmed in them the desire to punch themselves repeatedly in the stomach with their bloodied stumps, so they will be winded and unable to blow into any breath related musical contrivance. Gruesome, but God is Old Testament hard core.
Armageddon will occur when Cold Play release a Christmas record involving bagpipes and a children’s choir. There is no coincidence that there have been recent rumblings of Pink Floyd reuniting. These are God’s champions and are getting ready to beat Cold Play to the number one slot. If things get really nasty and Cold Play team up with U2 in the name of charity, then Jimi Hendrix will be resurrected. Evil shall not prevail.

Monday 12 January 2009

35 MUSIC/MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS/GIBSON LES PAUL

35 Music/Musical Instruments/Gibson Les Paul

This guitar represents design collaboration between Gibson Guitar, Les Paul and Sergeant Stanley Bollox of the Tottenham Light Artillery - Bicycle division.
After the success of the Fender Telecaster, Gibson thought they could do better. And they did, but only due to the intervention of Sergeant Bollox. At a Muddy Waters concert in Memphis Tennessee, short-sighted Stanley mistook Les as his commanding officer Captain Tarquin Beaucannon. The conversation went something like this:
Sergeant Bollox: Permission to speak Sah!
Les Paul (startled): Er granted. Um Sergeant. (Relieved his national service training didn’t go wasted).
Sergeant Bollox: I couldn’t help but notice that if Mr Waters had a bit more fire power he could get the job done in half the time. Those 2 single coil pickups aren’t nearly enough ordinance Sah! With a bit more punch he could blast through ‘Hoochie Coochie Man’ in seconds.
Les Paul: OK Sergeant what do you recommend?
Sergeant Bollox: May I suggest 2 double coils in reverse polarity configuration, thus reducing the noise and interference and increasing the output to amplifier Sah! ‘Mannish Boy’ and ‘Baby Please Don’t Go’ could be done on the double, leaving more time for groupie and beer action. You can’t get shag nasty with a Telecaster Sah!
Les Paul: Genius! And the body of the guitar?
Sergeant Bollox: Replace the Ash with Mahogany. Harder wood. Will take punishment. Good in the field Sah! With the right application of spirit would make a first class bayonet Sah!
Les Paul: Whammy bar?
Sergeant Bollox: For pooftahs Sah!
Les Paul: Good point, well presented.
And so a legend was born. Fortunately Stanley’s solution for replacing the Ludwig drum kit with 3 siege mortars, two 105 light field gun, and 140 Panzerfaust didn’t catch on.

34 FOOD/BEANS/MUNG BEANS

These dark green sprouting beans were called Mong beans up until the early 1980’s but out of respect for handicappers, spastics, disabilists and retards the PC police replaced the O with a U. They originally tried an I, but no one would buy them.
Hurston Heatherclad, a Yorkshire man industrialist, first imported the Mong from China in 1874. His entrepreneurial idea was to replace coal with beans. He invented the Mongo, an engine that was far superior to the Uniflow industrial steam engine of the time, and is indeed more efficient than anything produce to date. Because growing sprouts is not very macho and mining coal is, the idea was doomed to failure. Hurston was branded a Mincing Mong Merchant and his engine lost to time. In a parallel Universe Hurston succeeded. In this alternate world there is no famine, disease, war or the other one. Everyone has nothing but a feeling of love, acceptance and understanding of everything else. Hurston is a healthy 164-year-old married to pioneering brain surgeon, Gerri Halliwell. The Spice Girls and Health Food shops do not exist.

Thursday 8 January 2009

33 SOCIAL EVENTS/RELIGIOUS/CHRISTENINGS

Not the friendliest of introductions to a religion. A strange man, wearing a dress, smelling of wafers and wine, pours several ladles of water over a baby’s head. No wonder they cry.
These ceremonies can go on a bit too. But the Hymns do relieve the tedium, particularly ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’. In the third verse the lines ‘The purple headed mountain, The River running by’ are guaranteed to elicit schoolboy sniggering from even the weariest congregation. Baptisms have the widest range of ages of any religious gathering. Because of this a very rare type of dissonance occurs during the singing. Various styles of music compete to be heard; operatic soprano with crooning with rap with beat poet with lip sync. The cacophony is not unlike the augmented fourth or a diminished fifth. Not so much a tritone as a try tone, an acute straining to achieve tone. Not Diabolus in Musica but diabolical music. The only resolution this dissonance achieves is when the song finishes. To endure this every weekend is widely consider in ecclesiastical circles as the ultimate test of faith.

32 CONSPICUOUS SPENDING/JEWELRY/EXPENSIVE WATCHES

There is a clock on almost everything; Mobile phones, shops, iPods, computers, televisions, street corners. Like rats and London, it is impossible to be more than 4 foot away from a clock. So watches should be a redundant item. But business is booming. Fuelled mainly by men practicing for a mid-life crisis. As cars become ever more homogenised, watches are becoming the penis extension of choice. There is little difference in performance between a Ferrari and a child’s pedal car when stuck in a traffic jam, but vast differences in watches.
Last bank holiday Monday, 20 Glamour Girls, 14 trophy-wives, 3 super models and a toy boy of a Greek shipping magnet changed vehicles in the car park that was the M25. Colin Crabtree sitting in his hand-me-down Morris Minor, was very surprised to see Claudia Schiffer climb into the front passenger seat. She had mistaken his Timex Indiglo, 30m water resistant digital watch for a 1999 Gianni Vive Sulman. She didn’t realise her mistake until the South Mimms service area, but by then she was so captivated by Colin’s knowledge of the 2nd World War that she never let on.
As a rough guide: a Gianni Vive Sulman will get a Schiffer, Rolex bling a Naomi Campbell and shouting ‘One freckle past hair’ a Kate Moss.

31 PASTIMES/SPORT/CHILDREN'S PLAYGROUNDS

Despite recent attempts to make these places safe by using brightly coloured paint and comical cartoon pictures, children’s playgrounds remain an extreme sport heaven. Even the addition of sponge flooring has increased the element of danger. During the 2001 Ultimate Seesaw final, the 36 year old Swede, Jensen Johnson was able to set a new world record by the ingenious use of the double bounce granulated rubber mat technique. His opponent, the World Champion 34 year old German Jurgen Pretzelmeister, was catapulted an extra 3 feet, hit the monkey bars with his neck, fractured his scapula, and was forced to retire from the competition. With Pretzelmeister out, the free style ‘wobbly spring car’ title was up for grabs and rank outsiders, the Japanese, won the synchronised ‘Swing Jump and Knee Burn’ gold medal. ‘Peak Playground 2009’ is due to see the revolutionary inclusion of ‘Don’t
Step on the Cracks or You will be Eaten by the Horrible Monsters’. The favourite for this highly intricate event is 43-year-old Susan Sumppump, a particularly paranoid housewife from Salem Massachusetts. Susan was the only surviving witness to the 1984 ‘'Hop-scotch Death-Drop' incident in Aberdeen. (See 7 PASTIMES/SPORT/HOPSCOTCH)

Tuesday 6 January 2009

30 ANIMALS/HUMANS/BILL GATES

William Gates, CEO of computer giants Microsoft Corporation, is the richest man in the world and stills works in an office. This rather silly situation came about from a bet he made with one-time Microsoft office janitor and good friend, Benedict Farse, who made a joke contract stating that Gates could only retire when he was worth twice as much as Farse. Gates, rather arrogant with his blatantly better employment prospects signed willingly, and then promptly sacked Farce just to be on the safe side. Farce, furious to the point of madness, made it his life's mission to make so much money that Gates would never be able to retire. At the time of writing gates is still only worth 170% of Farces estate, several billion from his retirement goal. The second wealthiest person in the world is the Irish songwriter Enya, who was awarded half of Asia in exchange for promising to never again release a song that rhymes ocean with emotion. She is married to Benedict Farse.

Monday 5 January 2009

29 PASTIMES/SPORT/CONKERS

Conkers is a game involving the common Horse-chestnut seed. The game was originally played with snails and its name is derived from the French for shell, Conque. The Norman Conquest was not an invasion but actually the Norman Conque Quest. The French were over for the day on a marketing trip, trying to introduce the British public to snails as a culinary delicacy. Harold thought that William had called him a Conque, but William was simply offering him a snail, and it all kicked off. The Royal scribe Sir Basil of Bic recorded the conversation thus:
William The Conker (heavy French accent): You for a Conque?
King Harold(heavy Birmingham accent): I’m a fooking what? Stitch that pigeon eater!
Harold was killed by a lucky arrow shot in the eye, and the French, not used to winning wars, went a bit mental. One particular demented loon decided to string a snail to a bowstring as a symbol of victory. Then he noticed that if you smashed the snail it looked a bit like a gouged eye in its socket. And conkers was created. Gruesome you may think, but war is ugly.
Like Hopscotch, Conkers is gender specific. If a girl attempts to play conkers she is immediately converted to a boy. This is where homosexuals come from.

Thursday 1 January 2009

28 FOOD/LEAFS/CRESS

On the third of February 1965, Norfolk turnip farmer Gregory Batter, sick of the complexities of root vegetable production, sat down at 6:34pm to help his 6 year old son with his school science project consisting of growing some cress in a small Tupperware box. By 6:43pm he had produced 35 hectares of perfectly formed leaf. Batter was amazed and full with ideas of new directions in farming, but thoughts of a switch in produce was cut short when he tasted the crop and realised it tasted of absolutely nothing. However, in a bizarre twist of fate, Batters wife Maureen, a woman of dubious marital commitment, was in the bed of Marks and Spencer’s chief buyer, Paul Hut at precisely the same time as her husbands discovery. Within a month Hut had pulled in some favours at the environment agency and had managed to pass a bill making it illegal to sell any egg-based sandwich, sub, bun, wrap or roll without the presence of cress. Batter, it seemed was set up for life.
Gregory Batter, however, never made his millions. The first British cress farming millionaire was neighbour and renowned pumpkin farmer Frank Parker, whose son and local bully Barnie 'the bastard' Parker came up with a plan to jeopardise the Batters success, finding the only substance in the world that could stop the growth of cress. On one stormy night in April of the same year, Batters entire crop was destroyed by a surprise downpour of lemon juice, instantly bankrupting him. Parker lately revealed in his autobiography, 'A Crop of Crap', that he had in fact been responsible for this and that he didn't feel guilty due to Batter 'being a c*nt'. The legal battle still rages on.