#222
They don't just burn witches anymore. They have to try them first. By "try them" I don't mean like you would try a hat or a pair of trousers, although that might have been fairer. The try you by making you do a series of silly tests.
First I had to do one of those buzzy things. You know what I mean: the buzzy thing. You move a hoop over a bit of wobbly wire and if it touches it goes buzz. Well I did it perfectly, because I have the hands of a surgeon, but apparently this means that I am a witch.
The second test is that I had to do a Rubik's cube in under two minutes. This is proper easy for a brainbox like me, but I decided to play it smart. After all, these were simple country folk and they were bound to think that some kind of magic was involved if I achieved this task, so I deliberately failed. Apparently, my failure means that I am a witch.
The third test is maths. I have recently mastered quadratic equations, but I don't think that will help me here. This was the problem I was set: Malcolm is on a train travelling from Chichester to Frome at an average speed of sixty miles an hour. Meanwhile, Mary is waiting at a bus stop in Wolverhampton and her cousin Brenda has gone on a city break to Copenhagen. In light of this information, what did Nathanial Kerchunk have for breakfast?
Now, this was a tricky one, so I sat down with a pencil and paper and tried to work it out. It made my head throb but after fifteen minutes I finally came up with the answer: twenty-eight miles per hour! Apparently, this conclusively proves that I am a witch.
#221
I was escorted by two men to the en suite wazzer and they waited outside while I performed the necessary. Once alone, I did what any self-respecting fugitive would do and tried to escape through the window. I hoped that the groans and gasps that issued from me as I tried to wriggle through such a tiny gap would be interpreted as the normal utterances of a man who needs more fibre in his diet. But after twenty minutes, they grew suspicious and burst in to find me firmly wedged in the window.
When they finally got me back to the magistrate, I was still wearing the window frame, since it had been the only way they could free me. It was a grotty old window frame, not really my colour and it really didn't suit me, but I tried to style it out.
"Account for yourself," demanded the magistrate.
I'm not really an accountant, but I gave it a go. "There's one of me," I said. "And I am zero-rated for VAT purposes."
He then asked me what I was doing in the wardrobe. I sighed and told him my story: about searching for my wandering sandwich, about being fired from a catapult in another dimension, about pretending to be a roofer and falling from the sky. Well, you know when you've said the wrong thing, don't you?
"Witch!" cried the magistrate. "Witch! Witch! Burn the witch!"
Another bunch of people you have never heard of...
John Henry Mastodon
In 1962, John Henry Mastodon climbed Mount Everest the hard way - up the inside. Using nothing more sophisticated than a pickaxe, a trowel and a small penknife, the intrepid mountaineer tunnelled his way up the middle of the mountain. The hole he created still exists today and is used to run electrical cables and water pipes up to a small gift shop at the summit, where you can buy a commemorative tea towel that celebrates the achievement.
Bartholomew Lungs
Billed as The Man Who Talks to Penguins, Bartholomew Lungs toured his act around the provincial theatres of the UK in the forties and fifties. Lungs claimed to be able to talk to many species of penguin, including rockhoppers and emperors. Anyone fortunate enough to have witnessed his show would have seen about a dozen penguins lined up on stage, eight of them stuffed, while Lungs spoke to them at length on a variety of subjects including agricultural techniques, new developments in automobile manufacture and football. He spoke in English, the penguins never answered back and those that were still alive would frequently get bored and waddle off stage. Whenever people complained about the birds' lack of a response, Lungs explained that they were all mesmerised by what he had to say, as evidenced by their rapt and thoughtful expressions.
Malinky Formica
Someone has to hold the world record for eating the most spaghetti hoops with a cocktail stick whilst being on fire and parachuting out of a plane, and that person is Malinky Formica. This was not his real name, of course. Oh no, that would be silly. His real name was Malinky Jones. Although Malinky achieved the record, he did not survive the attempt because, you know, fire. By the way, if you're interested, the record is three.
Rancid Alan Grease
Grease briefly came to the nation's attention in the 1970s when he claimed to be the last remaining descendant of the Plantagenet line and therefore the rightful King of England. Minimal research was able to reveal that he was actually a self-employed plumber from Leicester, trading under the name "Speedyplumb". However, even this claim was disputed by one of his former customers, who said that he was still waiting for him to come and fit a shower, and that he didn't think the workshy git knew one end of a plunger from the other.
Vespasian Droid
You've all heard of Giovanni Schiaparelli, who was the first person to discover canals on Mars. No? Oh, well you have now. Anyway, Vespasian Droid is the astronomer who discovered railways on Saturn, monorails on Mercury and a helicopter pad on Uranus. He died tragically when crossing a road in Taunton, when he was too late in discovering the big red bus that was heading towards him at speed.
Hippocathius
Greek mathematician who invented the four-sided triangle. Although the four-sided triangle is still used in some branches of engineering and has certain specialised functions in microcircuitry, it has been largely superseded in common everyday use by the square.
Alphonse Lionheart Bullett
Eighteenth century adventurer, whose real-life exploits became the source material for a series of popular pamphlets. Accounts differ as to his eventual fate. Opinion has it that he was eaten by a giant octopus in the Indian Ocean in 1786. However, there are those who believe that the facts have become confused, and that what really happened is that he ate a giant octopus in an Indian restaurant and went home early to sleep it off. An unpaid restaurant bill currently on display in a museum in Mumbai seems to confirm this version of events.
Taken from The University of the Bleeding Obvious Annual 2022
Click here to download it for just £1 and get access to all our other annuals and special releases at the same time.
#220
Waiting in a wardrobe, the door was suddenly thrown open. I don't mean that the door was waiting in the wardrobe. Sorry, that is an example of a bad grammar: a dangling wotsit, or something. Let me start again and I'll do it proper.
As I waited in the wardrobe, the door was suddenly thrown open.
You see, that's a much better grandma. Anyhoo, standing there, framed in an aura of blinding light, was a chappy wearing thigh-length riding boots, a tie-died duffle coat, a shark's tooth necklace and an absolutely massive hat with a feather in it.
"You must be the magistrate," I said, blinking at him.
"How did you know?" said the magistrate, winking at me.
"Well, you're not dressed like a plumber, are you?" I replied, making a certain gesture.
"You have a point," said the magistrate. "I am Sir Digby Popwick, local landowner, magistrate and master of the ferrets. And you sir need to explain what you are doing in this young lady's wardrobe."
"I wasn't doing anything," I replied. "Although, if you hadn't arrived when you did, there might well have been an accident. Do you think, before we proceed, that I might pay a visit to the smallest room in the house?"
"Why would you want to visit the boot cupboard?"
"No, I mean the little boys' room," I explained. "The relief closet. The piddletorium. The wazzer. The widdle chamber. The slash boudoir. The source of the Nile."
The magistrate just shrugged.
"I want to do toilet."
The magistrate suddenly twigged. "Quick, get this man to the piddletorium!" he cried, and his minions escorted me as I hurriedly hobbled out of the room.
Even more people you have never heard of...
Pieter Elastoplato
President of the People's Republic of Groinburg, which is a small enclave in Walsall, quite near the M6. Pieter declared independence from the West Midlands in 1988, following a dispute about planning permission for a conservatory. The council continues to challenge his claim of sovereignty, although, due to an administrative error, the United Nations recognises Groinburg as a nation in its own right. In fact, Groinburg is a permanent member of the Security Council and Pieter regularly sends a delegation to New York. The country's major economic activity is claiming expenses, with the added bonus that they don't pay any tax. Incidentally, the disputed conservatory has still not been built, which some might say has rendered the whole exercise somewhat pointless.
Lord Godfrey Spandex
Inventor of the fully integrated goat milking system, considered to be the single greatest advance in goat milking since the development of pneumatic gloves. His system only works on fully integrated goats and to date no reliable solution exists for non-integrated and partially integrated goats.
Professor Suzi Polyester
Early twentieth century linguist and keen proponent of the Cambridge comma. This now defunct example of punctuation was four times larger than the rival Oxford comma, twice as heavy and approximately 40% curlier. Its use was banned in schools in 1932 on health and safety grounds.
Massive Mathew McCallister
Four times winner of the speed trumping championships. McCallister could fart at a prodigious rate and at speeds in excess of twenty-four feet per second. The average rate for a normal human is ten feet per second. McCallister claimed he was descended from Lord Julius Windbreak, who was Chief Farter to the Court of Queen Elizabeth I. McCallister's talented bottom has attracted the interest of NASA and the Russian military, and prompted the unceasing disgust of his neighbours and members of his immediate family.
Keith Marx
The ninth Marx Brother. He only made one film with the group, before he left to start a business filling horse troughs with custard for the benefit of sweet-toothed donkeys. Rumours abound that the real reason he left was because he fell out with Harpo over the correct way to fit a safety guard on a capstan lathe. He disappeared in 1975 and is still wanted by the police, who want to question him on the whereabouts of the sixth, seventh and eight Marx Brothers.
Pettruchio the Happy Chicken
Perhaps the world's happiest chicken, a title which admittedly is not too hotly contested. Pettruchio lived on a farm in Alabama in the 1950s, and whenever anyone went past, they would stop and say, "What the hell is that chicken laughing about?" We never did find out what it found so funny, but it was friends with a pig who occasionally had a fit of the giggles, and people speculate that they were sharing some private joke.
Florence Avocado
Growing up on a farm in eighteenth century Yorkshire, there was very little for Florence to do with her spare time, since table tennis was banned and the first Nintendo console wouldn't be invented until 1892. Instead, she dedicated her life to helping animals in distress - particularly worms, which she used to untie when they had got themselves all tangled up. This dovetailed nicely with the chief pastime of her brother, Granville Avocado, an evil bastard who would spend his free time tying them in knots in the first place.
Taken from The University of the Bleeding Obvious Annual 2022
Click here to download it for just £1 and get access to all our other annuals and special releases at the same time.
Archive 1
February 2001
- July 2003
Pop-Up Royals
"Running a Royal Family will set you back £20M a year in hay alone..."
Sofas Are From Mars
"A sofa on the surface of Mars..."
Tripping the Dark Fantastic
"I mean, you can't sell 'darkbulbs' can you?"
Maisy Donnington's Cheese Etiquette Page
"The wonderful world of cheese..."
French Polishers
"French polisher arrested for interfering with table..."
Getaway Driver
"Getaway Driver Seeks Robbery..."
Emergency Kebabs
"New enterprise wins award..."
Speed Dating
"Dating at 150mph..."
more...Teleportation Breakthrough
Experiments reveal limited success.
Strawberries
Is the strawberry a fruit or an animal?
Nelson's Travel Kettle
Archeologists unearth historic appliance.
Barney's Magic Wonder Show
A review
Unconventional Weapons
Was itching powder used in Vietnam?
Tapdancing Across the Sahara
A catalogue of catastrophic failure
Troubled by unruly hair?
Dark BatterWendy Miller's new theory
The Horse-Drawn Record PlayerEquine audio
Top 5 Speaking Tipswith Dick Smidgin
More...
The University
of the Bleeding Obvious
All material Copyright © Paul Farnsworth 2000-2022, and may not be reproduced without the express
permission of the author. All characters, companies and organisations are fictitious, and any similarity
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Contact:
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