9 January 2013
Some more of my personal favourites for your viewing displeasure, all in one place. _______________
Battle Of Balaclava
About fifteen hundred and five years ago a young gentleman by the name of Ronald Van Aushvistesnsteinbergenstein, the third earl of Balaclava engaged in fisticuffs with a pauper named Jamal. In those days paupers could not afford a surname so Jamal was known only as Jamal the Pauper, descendent of many paupers and also many a prostitute. Sometimes he was mistaken for his twin sister Jamelia the Slut, daughter of a pauper and daughter of another slut that wasn't called Jamelia. That though is inconsequential as far as this story goes.
The shenanigans erupted between the two after the earl accused Jamal of eating his Yorkshire pudding that he had left unattended when he went to throttle a sheep for reasons that are unknown to anyone, apart from the sheep and Ronald.
Jamal, being a pauper, did not know what a pudding was let alone what Yorkshire had to do with anything. That was his defence to the accusation. The earl did not accept the paupers explanation so proceeded to stab him in his face with a bent and rusted spoon, repeatedly. Just to clarify it was just the one spoon that was both bent and rusted and definitely not two spoons, one being rusted and the other being misshapen. The face stabbing hurt Jamal quite a bit, it in fact killed him to death.
As Ronald removed the spoon from his foes face he slipped on a spillage, ruining one of his white shoes. It was covered in blood. Being the third earl of Balaclava, he could not be seen wearing one red and one white shoe so he discarded the red one in the very country lane where he stood and there it remains until this very day. I am not quite sure why or indeed how the shoe had lasted for fifteen hundred years, I did not really think about that when I started this story. Lets just say it was a magic shoe once belonging to a vampire or werewolf. I understand the kids like that kind of shit?. Thus this is the exact events of the fabled Battle of Balaclava. There was no such thing as a Light Brigade. What is a Light Brigade exactly?. An army carrying lights?. It is a rubbish idea, you could see them coming for miles.
The End. _____________
Minsk Zoo And Inappropriate Footwear
I met a man in Timbuktu. He was selling recycled flip flops. He said to me as I was passing by his stall "Hey you, English" I replied "Yes me, English" Then he said "Do you want to buy some flip flops?". I contemplated my response. How many is 'some' in terms of amounts of flip flops?. I knew that these traders were highly proficient in their craft and I was wary of falling into a well rehearsed trap where I end up with three individual flip flops. Suffice to say this was no ruse and after entering pleasantries with this fellow I learned that he did indeed only intend to sell me one pair. One for the left foot and the other for the right foot. He was understanding in my apprehension and even retold a story of an Englishman who was conned into buying two bits of footwear intended for use on the left foot only. They were known as Flip-Flips in the industry and are not very usefull to people who have a left and right foot. He also retold a story about a trader selling a pair of Wellington boots to a blind man form Minsk. The blind man was told he was buying a camel. When the blind man got back home to Minsk he was particularly upset when he found that the local Zoo refused to accept his Wellington boots as an exhibit. _____________
The Adventures Of Sir Gerald Of Winthorpe And His Adventure At Midnight Through A Marsh In Colchester
In the year of 1733 Sir Gerald of Winthorpe rode his stallion through the marshes of Colchester where upon entering his fifth mile he discovered a lone peasant eating what can only be described as something dead. Sir Gerald stopped his ferocious beast and said unto the peasant out of curiosity "Why do you eat such a thing you hideous gobshite?" The peasant was sat on his backside, he was covered in mud, his clothes were old and looked like they were fashioned by a one handed, blind and also slightly drunk Staffordshire bull terrier. He looked up, his eyes catching the glare of the midnight moon. In a fit or rage, for reasons Sir Gerald can not remember, the peasant stood up and shouted directly in the face of Sir Gerald's horse "What are you oh mighty creature" The peasant had not seen such an animal in his life. The horse did not reply for it was a horse and could not speak nor understand english. Sir Gerald kicked the peasant with his foot and the dishevelled and decrepit peasant fell down and into a bush of unknown specifications. Sir Gerald then continued with his midnight horse outing only to stop again, but this time to query why another peasant was sitting on his backside and also eating something that was equally as dead as the thing the other peasant he encountered was eating. This time Sir Gerald descended from his majestic beast and walked up to the old peasent. He said "Peasant you look like an out of service garden gnome but what is it you eat upon this dark and not at all stormy night?" The peasant stood up and stared directly into the eyes of Sir Gerald and said "There is a peasent a few miles back Sir, did you see him?" Sir Gerald replied "Yes, yes I did lay my eyes on such a fellow, he now resides inside of a bush of which lineage I am not certain of" The peasant was pleased by this response, he continued "This thing which I was previously eating before you interrupted my dining session is a bit of whatever he was eating".
"Thankyou for your response you scumbag of scum" said Sir Gerald. He mounted his trusty steed yet again and continued on with his journey.
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Ancient Wisdom What Was Learned.
There's an old saying where I come from.
'Don't put your turnips all in one stew'.
It's meaning comes from an old English folk tale. Lucky you, I am about to retell this famous yarn.
An old woman lived in a house. That was quite common at the time. Not only did old women live in houses so did young women, unless they were homeless. In that situation they lived in shop doorways and Biffa bins.
This old woman was expecting her family over for an evening meal. That very day she had been out shopping for ingredients for the feast she was to bestow upon her guests that evening.
She went down the vegetable aisle and from the corner of her eye as she passed the carrots, she noticed a potato on the floor. Just one. It was her plan to buy a handfull of potatoes however this potato on the floor was quite off putting. She thought that there was a possibility that any of the potatos she picked from the plethora of potatos that were in a bag on the shelf could have been on the floor at some point or other. She did not want to serve rotting old floor potatoes to her guests. She now had a dilema. Without potatoes she could not feed her family. In a moment of panic she ran down the aisle, arms flailing, screaming obscenities at random shoppers.
"The potatoes are tarnished. The potatoes are tarnished. God damn it the potatoes are tarnished".
The onlookers were distraught, for they too were there to shop for potatoes. However as she reached the bottom of the aisle she noticed a full shelf of a foreign vegetable she had no recollection of seeing before in her massively overlong lifetime. She looked at the sign and it read ..... 'Turnips'
"Hmm" she thought "These things look like potatoes but are considerably bigger, these shalt do for the meal" and so she bought ten of them.
Authors note: the amount of turnips purchased is still being debated in academic circles, however the general consensus is that between ten and eleven were bought with some estimates being in the region of ten and a three quarters.
She went home having paid for these exotic vegetables. She made sure of it. She had witnessed a one eyed old lady with scruffy shoes being arrested for potato theft as she approached the checkout. When she got home she prepared the turnips. She was pleased and took pride with her meal she had prepared, a turnip stew. Finally her family arrived and immediately sat at the table and awaited their promised meal. The old woman served up. Her family sat in awe. They immediately understood and recognised that they were about to partake in stew. They were devastated to say the least. They made sure that the old woman was made aware of their displeasure. The old woman sobbed.
"Why are you so displeased?" she asked.
Her nephew stood up and threw down his bowl in disgust and said...
"Old woman, no one has eaten a turnip since before potatoes were introduced to these shores in the 16th century by that great sea explorer person, Sir Walter Raleigh, you mock us with you poor choice of vegetables"
It's needless to say, the meal went unfinished.
So this concludes the story of how 'Don't put your turnips all in one stew' became a popular saying.
Now: That's What I Call An Anthology: Powered By Batteries. • Opuss № I