5 January 2013
Some of my favourites. Enjoy!. ______________
Parrots of Sierra Leone
"Nuts for sale, nuts for sale.... Who will buy my nuts for sale". Said the old woman sat in her box of cardboard. She was draped in a newspaper from the blitz. Her hair resembling spaghetti that was past it's sell by date. Her face like a bulldog chewing on a wasp. Her hands like a rusted bicycle wheel spoke. She smelt like a bottle of turps that hadn't been opened since 1346. It was a pathetic sight. She looked like a tramp who had been given a degree in trampiness by the University of Hull.
But no one replied. For they all had nuts.
She thought to herself. "This is no good they all have nuts. Tomorrow I shall sell parrots for there are not enough pirates in this world".
And so she did. She sold many a parrot. Legend says that that same old haggard woman emigrated to Africa and now sells Parrots to children of Sierra Leone, who before her arrival were deprived of parrots.
And thus the African piracy trade was born. ____________
Westphalia
There was this lad who lived on a council estate in Scunthorpe who had a head that was fucking massive. Everywhere he went people would make a point to make a comment to him about his above normal head size. They remarked things such as, 'your head is massive' and 'massive head on you there'.
The lad from Scunthorpe was known as Bob to his friends because that was his name.
One day in the middle of the night a stranger knocked on his door. Bob answered. The stranger was draped in a cape reminiscent of some bygone era. His face was deranged. One eye fixated upon the door bell to Bob's abode and the other staring into the abyss of the night. Bob asked the stranger what he wanted. The stranger replied "What time is it in Kyoto?". Bob was not sure. He replied " I am not sure, besides what relavence is it?". The stranger was agitated by Bob's response. "By God, what relavence you say, well it is very relavent, imagine if the people of Kyoto did not know the time?. How would they set their alarms?" said the stranger who had a face like a melted Werther's Original. The lad from Scunthorpe contemplated upon this remark before deciding on a suitable retort. He settled with "What you say is true. I apologise. However would a butterfly flap it's wings if it didn't have anywhere to go?". The stranger of unknown origins simply turned his back and walked away.
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It's Getting Late But I Don't Mind
"How very dare you Sir" said Lord Chickenlimb. "How dare you steal my betrothed?". Lord Chickenlimb was a great man of stature, his height emphasised by his reliance on stilts that we're attached to his platform boots. "You have stolen my betrothed, stole her like a thief who had stolen things illegally in the night without being seen but this time I saw you. I saw you with my one good eye and my other good eye, you steal like a thief and I say to you Sir, I bite my thumb at you Sir, damn you, damn you all to hell".
Lord Chickenlimb could not hold back his displeasure. The hurt that the man before him, Major Sir Lord Oxo-Cubesmakegravy, had caused was unbearable. Major Sir Lord Oxo-Cubesmakegravy was not a tall man of stature, he was extremely tall. His tallness was emphasised by the smallness of Lord Chickenlimbs not very big furniture. He struggled to find the words to retort to this accusation but then, just then, he remembered something important. "It were not me Sir, oh, my incorrect accuser. You have lost your dignity, shame on you Sir, shame on your pigeons and shame on your kitchen. You crazy fool, you lost your wife to a bag of crazed gooses back in the summer of 29 when it fell on her". Major Sir Lord Oxo-Cubesmakegravy looked at Lord Chickenlimb awaiting a response. "Ah yes" he replied "I remember it now. It was the year Old Mable lost her tooth in the fight with Young Mable, my, how time flys". And they both lived happily ever after each other.
The End bit.
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Walkers: Ready Salted Texas Ridge Cut Ranger
When I was but a boy I discovered the secrets of salt. Yes, I was that pioneer. For I discovered that it could be used as a condiment on chips and then later on, to my pleasure, I discovered it could also be used as a condiment on battered fish but that story can wait.
If it wasn't for me you wouldn't have ready salted crisps. The little blue bag it comes packaged in though was not my idea. No, that came form a Tibetan monk named Charles who I met when I was touring the Great Barrier Reef, some way off Australia's coast, which is in the sea somewhere. We were both in a boat at the time, which was very fortunate given the circumstances.
I noticed that Charles was not enjoying his potato crisps, they were deprived of flavour he stated. When his back was turned I took it upon myself to sprinkle some salt in his plain flavoured crisps. His next mouthful of potato came as a shock to him. Being a monk with a superior intellect he quickly realised what I had done. We had a discussion about crisps on the back of this occurrence and also contemplated the benefits of salt in general. It was a riveting conversation. Afterwards, he came up with THE idea. He said "There should be a blue bag with salt in it so a consumer could pour their own" I replied "Yes, I agree". It was a very fine idea.
So I went to a crisp factory and said to a crisp factory worker "Hey, crisp factory worker. Put some salt in a blue bag, a small blue bag, and put it in bags of plain flavoured crisps because a Tibetan monk said there should be a blue bag with salt in it so the consumer could pour his own salt onto the crisps". The crisp factory man seemed to like the idea. I guessed this because he said "OK". Over the next few months the crisps were rolled out across the nation. The rest as they say is history.
Charles never saw the fruition of this idea. He didn't die or anything, he lost his sight due to glaucoma.
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Stairs
When I was a lad we didn't have stairs. Nope, none at all. You've got it easy.
Now, our bathroom was on the second floor of our house and to get to it we had to fashion a climbing structure out of food from the larder. A 14 foot climbing frame made from goats legs, beef sausages and the occasional tin of Heinz baked beans and because of this, it was vitally important that after using the toilet, hands were washed. Tins of beans, that's another thing. You can easily buy them now from shops but in my day, there was no such luxury. We had to go out and hunt them on the Heath. The little buggers were hard to track down. One time me and my brother Mary were out on the Heath from dawn till dusk and managed to trap only 1 tin. That's 1 tin to feed my family. All 801 of us. We were lucky. Times were different then, it was always four thirty, not half past four. If we came back with nothing we would have been the evening meal. Just think about what life used to be like the next time you are scoffing on your beans or indeed sitting on the toilet trying to push one out. Stairs are a luxury I tell you.
Now: That's What I Call An Anthology: 124939 • Opuss № I