Training Bacon Sandwiches for Fun and Profit
Apprentice tool-setter Marcus Toll is the first person to successfully train a bacon sandwich.
Whilst many sandwiches can be trained to perform rudimentary tasks, such as jumping through hoops or rolling over and playing dead, bacon sandwiches are notoriously obstinate and refuse to respond to traditional training methods.
Nevertheless, Mr Toll persevered for many years and eventually managed to persuade his sandwich to co-operate using a combination of basic hypnotic suggestion and sodium pentathol. He now claims it is capable of operating a telephone switchboard and hopes to secure it a job at a circus - as a receptionist.
If he is successful, it will be the first time anyone has ever successfully domesticated a bacon sandwich, although for a while it was popularly believed that Alexander the Great had a bacon sandwich that could handle basic carpentry. Historians now believe it was most likely ham, or some sort of pressed meat substitute.
Beans
Clyde Barrow, 46, claims that he can eat baked beans without first opening the tin.
He has performed this feat in front of spellbound audiences at fetes and shows across his native Lancashire, and as yet none of his critics has been able to deduce how the trick is done.
Nevertheless, all is not well with Mr Barrow, who now finds himself banned from all but one of his local supermarkets, following a spate of unaccountable bean thefts. No evidence has been forthcoming to place Mr Barrow at the scene of these crimes, but the fact that so many empty bean tins have been found, with no sign of forced entry, means that there is enough circumstantial evidence to make him the number one suspect.
We are reminded of a similar case from a few years back in which 35-year-old Brian Clinton of Barrow-in-Furness claimed he was able to open tins without eating baked beans. Needless to say, this somewhat less than remarkable talent did not immediately catapult him to fame and fortune.
Medieval Castles May Have Been Ineffective Strongholds
The traditional medieval castle is regarded as the ultimate stronghold, protected by deep moats and thick walls.
Until recently it was thought that the only effective way for an invader to take such a fortress would be to lay siege to it; to literally starve the enemy out into the open.
But now historian Dylan Chokice has cast doubt on this belief by pointing out a flaw common to most of the castles of this era - one which he says was exploited by invading armies on more than one occasion.
Having conducted an extensive tour of Europe's surviving castles, Mr Chokice has noted that whilst they all have many impressive and daunting defensive features, in almost every case the main entrance is only protected by a turnstile.
By paying a nominal fee to a man in a ticket booth, invading troops would have been able to gain access to the castle grounds completely unhindered. Sometimes they were even given a map.
This has totally changed our view of history. When once we might have imagined vast armies camped outside castle walls for months - sometimes years - at a time, we now have a more accurate picture of small bands of elite tourists entering the castle on a single family saver ticket, enjoying a brief visit to the petting zoo then taking the giftshop by force and holding it until reinforcements arrived.
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