Scotland Yard's Most Wanted
No. 42: Keith Hoople
Aliases: Mr Hoople
Distinguishing Features: A foul temper and an annoying wife.
Mr Keith Hoople works in the planning department of Surrey County Council, is vice president of the Leatherhead and District Amateur Bowls Club and is a former neighbour of the Chief Inspector of Surrey Police. Mr Hoople first came to the attention of the police when the Chief Inspector asked us to 'sort him out' following a dispute over an overhanging laburnum tree. Mr Hoople had persistently failed to respond to requests to deal with this, prompting the Chief Inspector to take the matter into his own hands and disintegrate the offending tree with a quantity of plastic explosive that had been confiscated from a militant faction of the Women's Institute the previous week. Mr Hoople claimed that the practice of explosive gardening was contrary to a local bylaw, and lodged a complaint with the council.
Surrey Police felt that positive action might persuade Mr Hoople to withdraw the grievance, and so we blew up his dog. This failed to have the desired effect, and encouraged Mr Hoople to sue us to recover the costs of having bits of dog professionally cleaned from his front windows. On the advice of our solicitor we settled out of court.
Status: Mr Hooper remains at large, and is believed to be armed and extremely litigious.
Scotland Yard's Most Wanted
No. 27: Barry Sandwich
Aliases: Barry Butty, Barry Sarnie, Chopper
Distinguishing Features: Scar on left cheek. Mole on Chin. Fat arse.
Barry Sandwich began his career in crime when he broke a tooth on a dodgy burger that he got from a van on the A2. Since then he has sworn deadly revenge on the catering trade, a ceaseless campaign of terror funded by armed robbery, counterfeiting, extortion, blackmail and the occasional spot of gardening at the weekends.
Detectives almost caught him during a summer season at Cleethorpes, when he was doing a memory man act under the stage name of 'Zygos the Munificent'. It later emerged that this was merely a cover story, and Barry was actually plotting to steal the Post Office Tower by smuggling it out of the country disguised as a yucca plant. The plot was foiled when customs officials smelled a rat and contacted the flying squad.
Apparently, the sight of a 620 foot yucca plant raised a few eyebrows, but wasn't considered particularly suspicious until someone noticed the revolving restaurant at the top.
Status: Still at large and considered extremely dangerous, although highly recommended if anyone needs their privet trimming.
Blanco
When Milan's Convent of Santa Maria della Grazie reopens next month it will bring to an end 500 years of obscurity for a man who many art historians believe is the greatest unsung master of all time. Two years of painstaking restoration work, stripping away centuries of dirt, pollution and paint, will finally reveal the work of the legendary Renaissance craftsman Gabriello Blanco - the man who did the undercoat for The Last Supper.
"It's been a difficult and delicate business," says project director Professor Michelle Phart. "But we're really excited about finally revealing this wonderful work to the public. At long last Blanco is going to get the recognition he deserves. Obviously I wouldn't want to cast any doubt on da Vinci's genius. His twiddly bits were excellent and he hardly ever went over the lines, but he'd have been nowhere without a smooth, blemish-free surface on which to work."
Not everyone is so excited, particularly celebrated critic Brian Towel, who is characteristically dismissive about the artist. "He was competent enough, but his broad strokes often seem clumsy, and lack the imagination that characterises true genius. Now, if the restoration team had gone further and delved beneath Blanco's third rate attempts, they would have uncovered the handiwork of a genuinely talented virtuoso. I speak, of course, of Fabricci Boshaccello - a craftsman of genuine refinement, extraordinary vision and someone who, in his day, was regarded as one of the most accomplished plasterers in Europe."
Appliances
Rise of the machines
There & Back Again by Elastic
"Going round the world by elastic..."
The Sandwich Advisor
The National Sandwich Hotline
Piffin: A Mediterrean Paradise
Roly Coconut pays a visit
Unconventional Weapons
Was itching powder used in Vietnam?
Lobster Facts
With Derek the Fact Crab
Archive 1
February 2001
- July 2003
Motorcycle Display Teams
"When Zeppelin built the first motorbike..."
Exploding Dinners
"The latest pyrotechnic technology..."
Maisy Donnington's Cheese Etiquette Page
"The wonderful world of cheese..."
Death by Pastry
"A Huge pie hanging in space..."
Fluff
Startling new data suggests that the amount of fluff in the Earth's biosphere will shortly reach catastrophic proportions. Until recently, most of the fluff on the planet was of natural origin, usually produced by dandelions, certain birds and as a result of particularly woolly sheep becoming snagged on bushes. However since the invention of the 'pocket' in 1542, levels of artificial fluff have risen dramatically. Today's modern synthetic pockets can produce fluff at an alarming rate, and in 2001 an initiative was introduced to encourage clothing manufacturers to convert pockets to more environmentally friendly polymers. This went some way towards stemming the ongoing tide of fluff, but critics have suggested that it's too little, too late. Besides, pockets are really only part of the problem. Fluff is also found down the backs of refrigerators, it forms spontaneously in attics and it is one of the chief by-products in the manufacture of lard.
10 Things You Never Knew About Frogs
"Frogs can jump ten times their own bodyweight..."
Jazz Bomb
"They had built a massive underground Wurlitzer on the outskirts of Munich..."
The Wackiest Person in the UK
"...madcap antics ..."
Noblock and Kerfanderbuck
"The fenny bentleys all dropped dead..."
more...
All material Copyright © Paul Farnsworth 2000-2013, and may not be reproduced without the express
permission of the author. All characters, companies and organisations are fictitious, and any similarity
to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Contact:
bleeding-obvious@hotmail.com.