A Funny Thing

"Now, here's a funny thing," I said.

"I can see that," she replied, smiling.

I sighed. "No, not that," I said with some irritation as I refastened my trouser zip. "This."

"What?"

I moved closer and opened my hand slowly and carefully.

"Aaah," she cooed, reaching out to stroke it, but - for once - my zip remained fastened. Instead, she peered at the thing in my hand. "It's very small."

"I know," I snapped. "But I am doing all the exercises with the device. Anyway, I measured it last night, and it…."

"No," she reached out a finger to stroke the contents of my hand. "This," she whispered. "It is rather small."

"Careful. It is quite delicate."

"It feels as soft as the fur on my pussy," she said in wonder.

"But I thought you said you'd shaved it all off?"

She looked up at me, her brow furrowed in puzzlement. "What?"

I glanced down at her crotch, raising an eyebrow.

"Oh. No, not that. My pussy… Sam."

It was my turn to do the puzzled look.

"Sam, my pu… my cat, remember?"

"Oh, yes. Of course," I lied.

"It is soft though."

"Well." I squirmed. "I've not been well, recently, and… well… I have had a couple of drinks, and…."

She glanced up at me, finding it difficult to tear her eyes away from my open palm. "No, I didn't mean that. I mean this." She stroked the thing resting on my open palm again.

"Oh!" she cried, suddenly. "There are two of them."

"No." I smiled. "Look closer."

"Oh, it looks like two, at first, but there's really only one of them… er… it."

The small furry creature sitting in the palm of my hand lifted both of its heads and looked at her, blinking slowly.

"What are they… er… what is it?" she asked in wonder. "Tell me."

"I thought you knew," I said.

"No."

"It's a Double Entendre, of course," I said.

Goldilocks

Last Saturday, I was walking in the woods, when I heard a noise from behind me.

'Psst.'

I ignored it and turned to carry on.

'Psst, hey you.'

I turned and walked back to the tree that I thought was talking to me.

A bear stepped out from behind the tree, looking around nervously. 'Hey mate,' he said. 'Have you seen the woodman?'

'You're a bear,' I said.

'Well spotted.'

'But not only do bears not talk,' I replied. 'They are no longer native to this country.'

'Tough shit mate,' the bear said, still looking around nervously. 'You're in a fairy tale now. A different bleeding reality, innit?'

'Oh shit, not another fairy tale. The doctor told me that if I laid off smoking that stuff it wouldn't happen again.'

'It's nothing to do with what you've been smoking, mate,' the bear said with an element of disgust. 'Some dozy sod's been arsing around with the whole space/time continuum whatsit. Everything's gone to buggery.' The bear sat down on a convenient tree stump. 'Take last week; they only had me - me - up the castle giving that Sleeping Beauty a kiss. Do I look like a sodding prince?'

'Well....' I said carefully, noticing the size of his claws.

'Anyway, like I said. Have you seen the woodman?'

'What do you mean the one that used to leap out from behind the trees and show the girls his chopper?'

'Naw,' the bear said. 'I can see you haven't been here for quite a while. The fairy godmother soon put a stop to that - it was ruining the whole reputation of fairy tale land that was - she banished him from the magical forest. Last I heard he'd gone into politics.' The bear spat in disgust.

'No, I haven't seen the woodman. Why do you want to know?' 'He's after us - me and my mates.'

'Why?'

'You've heard of Goldilocks.'

'Who hasn't,' I spluttered. 'Is she still...?'

'What, the forest bike?' The bear said.

'Well, I wouldn't put it like that,' I said. 'Anyway, I never believed those stories about her. The only time I went out with her I never even found out if she was a natural Goldie.'

'Oh, she is, she most definitely is.' The bear nodded his head wistfully.

'Anyway, what's the problem?' I said. 'The Goldilocks and the three bears story I head didn't sound too serious - as far as I recall everyone lived happily ever after.'

'Weeell....' The bear shifted uncomfortably on his stump and scratched. 'I think I might have a hair up my arse,' he said.

I took a couple of steps back. 'Yes?'

'Well, you know the Daddy Bear, Mommy Bear and Baby Bear bit?'

'Yes.'

'Our agent's idea. She thought three male bears sharing a cottage deep in the woods, flowers around the doorway, rustic antique furniture and so on.... "Sends entirely the wrong signals," she said. We could see her point, fairy tales have been getting a declining market share ever since Watch with Mother, and since those bleeding Teletubbies stitched everything up... Well, a bear's got to eat, and we've all got families back home, y'know?'

I nodded. 'Go on....'

'Well, a bear gets lonely too, y'know... far from home. We do a bit of moonlighting on the side... black market honey. Well, these days every bit helps....' He sighed. 'Anyway, there we are all three of us hanging around one morning, reading the papers, talking about who we think'll get the England manager’s job. Y'know... just three bears with a bit of spare time on our paws....' He shifted on his stump again. 'Do bear's get piles, do you know?'

I shook my head. 'I have no idea.'

'My arse is giving me some gyp this morning,' he said. 'I think it is all this shitting in the woods.' He shifted himself again. 'Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes. She came to the door, y'know - you could see she was up for it, peasant blouse unfastened right down to her... leaning on the doorjamb, you get the picture?' He shrugged. 'I mean we are normal bears, y'know... with a bear's needs... a long way from home and our families... and she was more than willing, y'know?'

'Yes.' I nodded. I knew what Goldilocks could be like when she was in the mood. Trouble was she was only in the mood on days with a 'y' in them and she could be hotter than the jam in a microwaved doughnut.

The bear could see from the look in my eyes and the submarine surfacing in my trousers that I knew what he was talking about. 'Well, you know the bit in the story about the broken furniture?'

'Y...es.'

'Well, you know one girl and three bears, a chair is not going to last long is it?'

'No.'

'Or a bed come to that.'

'No.' I hesitated. 'The porridge?'

'I don't have to draw a picture, do I?' The bear said. 'Suffice to say it wasn't too hot for her to swallow, if you see what I mean?'

'Yes, right.'

The bear sighed. 'So there you are then.'

'But, what does this have to do with the woodman? He's not her father is he?'

'No.'

'He's not he lover, brother husband, fiancé or anything either?'

'Oh no... let's just say he swings his chopper the other way, shall we?' The bear put his paw on his hip and fluttered his eyelids. 'Know what I mean?'

'Oh, right.'

The bear stood up, brushing down his fur. He looked over my shoulder. 'Oh, fuck! It's him. I'm off, see you.' The bear dropped down to all fours and began to run.

'But why is he after you?' I called after him.

'It was his bloody cottage and we wrecked it!' The bear called back over his shoulder. 'He's after us to pay for all the bloody damage.'

And with that, the bear was gone, with the woodman chasing after him, crashing through the thick trees. A moment later I saw the pope emerge from the trees, pulling his robes back down as he stepped back on to the path that led from the woods.

I took the other way out.

(Another one of my earliest – see here, and here for example)

The Periodic Table

As most people are aware, the science we now know as chemistry grew out of what was once alchemy, a semi-mystical method of arsing about with various substances. The aim of alchemy was to bring about - by combining these various substances together - what was known as The Philosopher’s Jaffa Cake. This was rumoured to be a magical concoction of a golden sponge topped with a mystical and mysterious orange-flavoured substance, which was coated with a layer of chocolate.

Of course, many of the natural philosophers of the time boldly stated that such a concoction existing somewhere between the natural states of a biscuit or a cake without quite being either, would run counter to what they then regarded as God’s immutable laws of creation. Consequently, most of the experiments undertaken by the alchemists to attempt to create the philosophers Jaffa Cake had to be conducted in secret and the results and methods written in the alchemist’s own code.

Inevitably, not much of any real worth ever came from these early experimentations. However, one experiment intended to create the mystical orange-flavoured substance did result in the invention of marmalade, rightly acclaimed at the time of its invention (or discovery) as being the food of the gods.

Alchemists however, slowly began building up an understanding of the underlying nature of these substances they experimented with. This eventually led to the discovery that some of these materials were fundamental substances, which –consequently - could not be broken down any further into constituent substances – these were later to be known as The Elements. However the precise relationships between these elements and how they became biscuits were not fully understood at the time.

The breakthrough came when Dabbler Mandolinolinolin in a sudden fit of insight in the biscuit aisle of his local supermarket about the obvious connections in the relationship between the digestive and the chocolate digestive enabled him to invent the Periodic Table of Biscuits. It was only then that the true relationships between the various forms of biscuits became apparent and explicit. For example the links between the fruit shortcake and the garibaldi were suddenly abundantly clear, as well as relationships such as the link between the rich tea biscuit and the digestive. Even the even less obvious similarities such as those between the custard cream and the Jammy Dodger, were all suddenly revealed in Mandolinolinolin’s table. Even such oddities as the Bourbon became suddenly comprehensible to the nascent chemists of the time.

The discoveries of how the various forms of biscuit were related to each other came thick and fast after that, including only 50 years later an understanding of how the Transitional biscuits such as the digestive bridged the – what was formerly thought inviolate – gap between the sweet biscuits and the cheese biscuits.

Later it was realised that beyond the naturally occurring biscuits, it was possible to create Synthetic elements and so such things as Hobnobs and other new weird and wonderful creations came about.

It is undeniably true that without Mandolinolinolin’s Periodic Table Of Biscuits, some progress would have been made on understanding the fundamental role that biscuits play in the natural world. However, it is arguable that we would not know as much as we do now about the true nature of biscuits without Dabbler Mandolinolinolin’s great insight.

I Can't Believe It's Not Cat Vomit

I Can't Believe It's Not Cat Vomit first appeared on our supermarket shelves only three years ago, but already an almost staple part of the 'cool' young British person's diet.

Although, ironically, I Can't Believe It's Not Cat Vomit was not first intended to be marketed as a foodstuff at all. It was originally intended as a form of fake cat vomit for sale in joke, toy and novelty shops. However it met with limited success, mainly because it did actually resemble authentic cat vomit, unlike the other wares normally sold as joke or fake vomit, faeces, body parts and so on that - in reality - fool no-one other than the gullible humourless punter who seemingly believes that such articles are in some way amusing.

Consequently, the fake cat vomit's seemingly authenticity was its downfall in the joke/novelty market as any putative purchasers of the item tended to shy away from any premises that would leave seemingly fresh cat vomit on prominent display in their shop windows. In fact, several joke and novelty item shops gave up attempting to sell the fake cat vomit after repeated visits from their local Environmental Health inspectors.

Spineboard Recalcitrant - the inventor of I Can't Believe It's Not Cat Vomit - somewhat despondently continued to search for other joke and novelty-style shops that would be attracted, rather than repelled, by the life-like veracity of his product, and, therefore, would be prepared to stock it. But he met with very limited success. However, one day, Recalcitrant happened to notice, while doing his weekly food shop at his local supermarket, such products as peanut butter, sandwich spread, chocolate spread, crab paste and other such products intended for use as sandwich fillers. Struck by the resemblance of some of these items to his own fake cat vomit, Recalcitrant came up with the idea that would revolutionise the sandwich-filler industry and drag it into the 21^st Century.

Recalcitrant was initially concerned, though, that the fact that his fake cat vomit not only looked like real cat vomit, it also smelt and tasted (yes, in the interests of veracity, he did - indeed - check) like it too. This caused Recalcitrant to research various ways of making it smell and taste better, but every iteration on the basic formula he experimented with to make it more palatable removed that very strong resemblance to cat vomit that Spineboard Recalcitrant instinctively knew made other similar sandwich fillers such a success.

Just as he was tempted to give up in despair of ever realising his dream Recalcitrant was approached by Desultory Weaselcheese, head of the famous Marketing Consultants Weaselcheese, Nosedrops and Fetidbreath. Weaselcheese convinced Recalcitrant that in the world of convenience foods, and such items as sandwich fillers in particular, smell and taste are of little or no real consequence. Especially, as Weaselcheese point out, the young demographic that advertising targets is mainly made up of people who believe that being cool - while, at the same time, slightly daring - in front of their mates is far more important than any sign of good taste.

"All you need," Weaselcheese said to Recalcitrant "is an attractive jar and a cheap but memorable ad - ideally featuring some vaguely familiar celebrity who would willingly sells tins of their granny, served in Hannibal Lector's favourite sauce if it meant getting their face or voice back on the telly, even for just thirty seconds or so, and a sizeable fee."

It was at that moment that I Can't Believe It's Not Cat Vomit was born. The rest, as they say, is history.

Protagonist Beetlelicker

Protagonist Beetlelicker was 'one of them'. But not a 'one of them' them. Although it was not unknown for 'one of them' to be 'one of them'. In fact, when they were discovered, the number of those that were 'one of them' that were also 'one of them' came to a fair proportion - something like three out of five.

It took quite a long time, a very long time, to discover that Beetlelicker was 'one of them'. After all, he had been to the right school and the right university. He belonged to all the right clubs. He knew all the right people and came from one of the right families. He was arrogant to the point of almost complete and utter stupidity and possessed an accent that even the Royal Family found nearly incomprehensible.

The authorities first became suspicious when an official Soviet Party newspaper published a photograph of Brezhnev on holiday at his Dacha on the Black Sea coast. The Russian leader was pictured striding out of the sea in his swimming costume while next to him was Protagonist Beetlelicker, laughing heartily as he helped the elderly man up the beach.

Beetlelicker, as is it - even now - still is common practice in the secret services, claimed he liked to take Top Secret documents on holiday with him as he had an intense dislike of the average beach-reading fare - typically espionage novels. He found such novels deeply implausible, as most of the espionage agents he knew were far too busy having sex with each other, or fiddling their expense accounts, ever to engage in anything so sordidly middle-class as actually spying on one another.

The end for Beetlelicker came in 1978 when he was discovered handing over a Top Secret dossier containing both of Great Britain's nuclear secrets to the notorious Soviet female spy chief Cliché Suckemoff as they lay in bed together, exhausted from an afternoon of frantically athletic sex. British agents burst into the Vienna hotel bedroom just as Protagonist handed the file he retrieved from under his pillow to the eager Suckemoff.

His defence of "I knew she liked a good joke." was dismissed out of hand at his trial and he was sentenced to life imprisonment for treason. Beetlelicker was swapped in a spy exchange between Britain and the USSR in the early 80s where the USSR offered an Unmissable-Swap-Two-Get-One Free deal, which the notoriously frugal UK PM Margaret Thatcher could not pass up, despite her well-known hatred of the unpatriotic or bearded. Beetlelicker thenceforth was given some titular make-work job deep in the heart of the Soviet Bureaucratic machine and was never heard of again.

Curiously, however, after the collapse of the Soviet Union a trawl of the KGB archives revealed that Cliché Suckemoff was in fact a double agent working for the British. Unfortunately, due to an error of her own making she had defected not to MI5 or MI6, but to MFI - the well-known , but now defunct furniture chainstore. This didn't help Britain much politically or militarily during the Cold War, but it did enable the UK to maintain its lead over the USSR in fitted-wardrobe technology that turned out to be so instrumental in the final collapse of the Soviet system a few years later.

The Sermon On The Hill

Now it came to pass that the great Uttabollux Prophet, Nhigel (may his plums dangle mightily), was out having a stroll with his disciples while they were waiting for the pub to open. Nhigel had his fifteenth of his wives, Karen the Easy, with him as well as his disciples. They all sat down on top of a promontory known locally as ‘the hill’.

‘Well anyway,’ Nhigel said. ‘You see, there was this bloke and he went into a pub’. Soon a crowd began to gather around to hear the wise words of Nhigel. First, he told them the Parable of the Talents. ‘Well, you see there are those like Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison who have the real talent, but end up pissing it all away, and there are your dull geezers like Cliff Richard and Cilla Black who do the job but lack the flair of the others.’ Then he told them of The Good Scandinavian Plumber who came to the rescue of a poor underdressed housewife who had a problem with a blocked sink.

Then some blokes - from the massive crowd that had, by now, gathered - brought out a friend of theirs on a stretcher for Nhigel to heal.

‘What’s up with him then? He looks like a malingering bastard to me,’ the wise and compassionate Nhigel said to the man’s friends.

The sick man’s friends told Nhigel about the strange illness that the stretcher bound man suffered from. The way he would seem to be fine for most of the evening, but at closing time, on his way out of the pub he would suddenly - and inexplicably - fall to the ground in an insensible heap. The friends explained that they had tried to heal him with the traditional post-pub kebab, and even the holy curry, but to no avail.

‘Right,’ Nhigel said. Carefully placing his healing hands around the sick man’s throat, Nhigel whispered ‘Get up you idle malingering bastard. If I ever see you pretending like this I’ll kick your nuts into the middle of next week, understand?’

‘I’m healed! I’m healed!’ yelled the sick man taking up is stretcher and walking. ‘Come on, lads, I’ll get the first round in!’

‘It’s a bloody miracle,’ the former sick man’s friends cried.

The crowd had now swelled to what one of Nhigel’s disciples later claimed was about 5 thousand… at least, but police sources later estimated at 79, and a dog on a string.

‘Hang on, lads,’ said Barry the Tosser, Nhigel’s most devoted disciple, looking at his watch. ‘It’s dinner time.’

Other members of the gathered crowd began to look at their watches too. ‘I’m hungry,’ said one.

‘Me too!’

‘And me.’

Soon it seemed the whole crowd was – so they claimed - very near the point of starvation.

‘Why don’t you all sod of home and get something to eat, you dozy sods?’ said the wise and all-knowing Nhigel.

‘B… b… but we all live all the way down there,’ one of the crowd said, pointing to the housing estate at the bottom of the hill.

‘And?’

‘Well, it’s bloody miles away and by the time we get home it will be too late for dinner.’

‘Miles away? said Stan the Sceptical, another of Nhigel’s disciples. ‘It isn’t even one mile, a few hundred yards, if that, and all downhill.’

‘But there are no buses… or taxis, or anything,’ said a voice from the crowd. ‘And I need chips; I’ve got a medical condition.’

‘Hang on a bit love,’ said Karen the Easy to Nhigel, as she rooted about in the bottom of her cavernous handbag. Eventually she withdrew a half-empty tube of Pringles from her back and passed it to Nhigel.

Nhigel held the tube of Pringles high in the air. ‘Form a queue in front of Barry here, and we’ll share these out between you.’

‘Er… no… It’s all right, I’m not hungry now.’

‘Me neither.’

‘Nor me!’

‘Bloody hell!’ shouted Barry as the crowd – as one - all claimed to no longer be hungry at turned away to trudge back down the hill. ‘It’s another bloody miracle.’

‘Yeah,’ Nhigel said, taking one of the Pringles from the tube and looking at it for a moment before trying to feed it to a song thrush sitting on a nearby bush. The bird immediately took to the sky, leaving the crisp-like object to fall from its beak to the ground. ‘Come on, let’s go for that drink.’

The Princess and the Frog

Well, thanks a lot. That wasn't a very nice thing to do. That's the last time I invite you over to my lily pad to share a nice fresh fly - not that I suppose you'll be interested, not any more.

What upsets me most was that it was me, I saw her first. I remember it was a nice sunny day, gentle ripples on the pool, a nice breeze and the promise of many flies.

"Look over there!" I said.

"What?"

"It's - unless I'm very much mistaken - a princess."

"Right," you said and hopped off.

You sat right in the middle of the path. I was sure she would just tread on you or run off screaming when she saw the horrible slimy green blob just sitting there and croaking at her. That is, until I saw what you were doing.

I doubt if she would have paid any attention to you at all if you hadn't started doing those tricks with your tongue. Catching that fly inches from her nose, then unbuttoning her dress with just the curling tip of your tongue like that. I suppose it can be come a bit frustrating being a princess, shut up in the tower all day with just a spinning wheel and an old maid for company - dreaming about knights and their long lances and princes doing heroic deeds for half the kingdom and all that.

Anyway, after she'd recovered and got her dress back on, I remember, she asked if there was anything she could do for you.

"All I want is a kiss," you said.

Well, we all know what happens once a princess kisses one of us, don't we?

There was a flash of light, a small explosion and an embarrassing puff of purple smoke (I told you not to eat so many bluebottles).

"What is that sticking out in front of you?" She said, once she had got over the fact that what was once a scaly frog was now a (almost) handsome (in a poor light) prince. She pointed down to where your codpiece was resting like a saucepan lid on a broom handle.

"Ah, that is part of the curse put upon me by the evil witch," you said. "Unless I can get a princess to kiss me there, then - at midnight - I will turn back into a frog."

I fell off my lily pad when I heard that, the bloody bare-faced cheek of it. I must admit I didn't think the daft cow would fall for it, but that's princesses for you.

I must admit I haven't seen you smile like that since the time you swallowed that dragonfly - whole - but she did bring a certain amount of enthusiasm to the job. I always wondered why the guards up at the castle called her Princess Dyson.

Anyway, after I'd clambered back up on to my lily pad, and you had reassembled your codpiece, I sat up ready and waiting. I knew you would not forget me. Me, your oldest friend. Me, who had introduced you to that sexy little minx last spawning season. If it wasn't for me you wouldn't have been the proud father of 250 healthy, bouncing tadpoles.

I knew you wouldn't forget me. Just a quick whisper in her ear: "A kiss for my oldest, dearest friend. No - there is no need for the 'special' kiss. His was a different witch." A quick peck on the cheek would have done.

I closed my eyes and puckered up - waiting.

When I opened my eyes a few seconds later, you had gone.

If you had hung around for a while, I could have told you that it wouldn't last, that it would all end in tears. I could have warned you.

Going out in a magical coach so near to midnight is just asking for it. Those mice might be all right in a straight line, but curves and underpasses and going at such a speed when the coach is turning back into a pumpkin is an accident waiting to happen. If she hadn't been wearing the glass slipper, she may even have survived the crash.

Ah well.

On the whole, life isn't so bad here. It is a bit damp on this lily pad I suppose, but there are a lot of flies, and some of those tadpoles of yours have grown up into quite pretty females.

It will soon be spawning time again.

(Another one of my earliest – see here, and here for example)