America's Got Talent

American television show (a spin-off from the British original) in which hopelessly talentless nobodies recruited randomly from the general public judge a singing contest.

Humpty-Dumpty

Humpty-Dumpty is an allegorical poem believed to have been written by Christopher Marlowe in the Elizabethan era as a metaphor for the defeat of the Spanish Armada. Humpty, of course, represent King Phillip II of Spain. The original reads as follows;

Humpty-Dumpty sat on the wall,

Humpty-Dumpty had a great fall,

All the Queen's horses and all the Queen's men,

Had omelettes for a week.

The rhyme was later adapted by Charles Dickens for his frankly terrible novel Alice in Oz.

Arnold Schwartzenegger

Arnold Schwarzenegger was born Arnold Black in Los Angeles in 1947. After an unremarkable childhood spent dreaming of the bright lights of Hollywood, Arnold set off on the path to stardom, changing his name to Schwarzenegger and claiming to be from Austria to give himself a Germanic mystique and affecting a dense German accent to hide his appalling grammar.

Arnold's carefully planned his ascent to stardom, beginning by entering the glamorous world a nude body-building, which was a growth industry at the time.

His film breakthrough came in the sword and sorcery classic O'Brien the Barbarian in which he played a taciturn, scantily clad Austrian warrior; he described it as the part for which he had been born. He went on to star in blockbusters like The Terminator, directed by David Cameron and Commando, where he too the lead role of Johnny Commando. He later branched out into comedy, starring in the hit Twins with Danny Di Maggio.

But Hollywood was only the beginning - soon, Arnold was being begged by the people of his home State to become their Supreme Governor. Arnold allowed himself to be persuaded to serve and was elected to rule the people of California, becoming the most successful actor turned politician since Ronald Reagan.

Donkey's Years

A unit of time measuring 578 days. A leap donkey's year occurs once every 5th donkey's year and lasts for 579 days.

Lesbian Priests

A new innovation in the Anglican Church.

Since the Elizabethan Archbishop Parker married Margaret Harleston in the 1540s, the Anglican Church has always been marked by its married priests. Historians have noted that Anglican Priests have always married women. This is the main reason behind the most serious split in the Anglican Communion, caused by the ordination of women priests in the 1990s. These women made fine priests but were unable to marry other women. Traditionalists were appalled that these new women priests were married to men – even the gay priests weren’t allowed to do that! Archbishop George Carey was forced to resign over his handling of the issue.

A solution was at hand, however; lesbian Priests. The2008 Lambeth Conference agreed that a lesbian Priest in a civil partnership or gay marriage, depending on the jurisdiction in which they lived, would make a perfectly satisfactory Priest. The future of the Anglican Communion was assured.

Nobel Peace Prize

The Nobel Peace Prize is a prestigious and lucrative award which is presented to the person who has, in the past year, made the greatest contribution to the wider use of drone strikes in the Pakistani Semi-autonomous Tribal Areas.

Leo Slayer

Leo Slayer is the ever-popular, frizzy-haired, middle-aged Heavy Metal folk singer-songwriter from England. He first had success in the Seventies when he was writing for Black Sabbath and was recommended for a contract by Ozzy Osbourne who regarded Slayer as a genius. His first solo thrash metal single 'You make me feel like Dancing' was a transatlantic hit and won a Grammy - a success that he soon followed up with the classic 'When I need You' with its satanic lyrics, killer guitar solo and shouted vocals.

His 1986 release 'Reign in Blood' has been called "the heaviest album of all time" by Kerrang! However, controversy has followed Slayer with accusations of Nazi sympathies - accusations which he strongly denies.

South Africa

Unimaginatively named country at the South of Africa.

Herman Van Rompuy

Herman van Rompuy is the first President of the European Union having won a landslide election victory having run an inspirational campaign in which he adapted the slogan popularized by Barak Obama - 'Can we have no change at all? Yes we can!' His campaign transformed him from a provincial outsider into Europe's most popular politician and won him comparisons with the first American President George Washington.

Charles I

Charles was born in Scotland in 1600 and was remarkable as he was the first person in Britain ever to be called Charles. He was a sickly child and was put into the care of the Dutch born Alletta Carey who taught him how to walk and talk. This meant that he could only speak Dutch and walk in clogs but he was a clever boy and soon won the affection of the court. He always remembered his time with his Dutch nanny and, in honour of her Low County origins, he resolved to remain a very short man and grew to just 4' 6".

Charles was plagued throughout his life by communication difficulties – he spoke English with a strong Dutch twang and spoke Dutch with a distinctive Scottish lilt. As a teenager, he began to acquire a reputation for his effeminate ways and in 1603 he was made Marquess of Ormond, the girliest title in Britain. Nonetheless, he was soon engaged to be married to the Spanish Infanta. He soon decided that he didn't want to marry an infant and instead married the French Princess Henrietta Maria who was almost as tiny as he was. This made him very unpopular amongst the English who distrusted Henrietta Maria's snail-eating, garlic-chomping ways and her habit of using a hole in the ground as a toilet.

This was the start of Charles' long conflict with Parliament. The opposition was lead by John Pimms whose political campaigning was funded by the alcoholic drink he patented in 1636. Pimms continued to oppose the King even after Parliament was closed, campaigning against the introduction of 'shit money' - an extra-parliamentary tax which was imposed by Charles in 1534 in an attempt to pay for his government without having to ask Parliament to raise taxes. 'Shit money' involved charging people for disposal of their household waste; a service that had previously been provided free of charge by the local council.

Things came to a head after the 'Bishop's War' broke out in Scotland. Charles soon found that having an army comprised entirely of Bishops was both inefficient (Bishops make notoriously bad soldiers) and costly (Vestments do not come cheap.) In order to fund his efforts, Charles had to recall Parliament. Pimms saw his chance and used the new Parliament to attack the King. The King retaliated by declaring Civil War - manners being considered so important in the 17th century that they were observed even in wartime.

Eventually, Charles was captured and put on trial for treason and other high crimes. He was duly found guilty of treason but let off the charge of high crimes as he was too short to reach them. The King was executed by beheading, although the executioner's axe was reputed to have gone over his head on three occasions before the executioner got his aim right.

The King remained popular in France where he was venerated as a Saint by the royal family. Louis XI even went as far to have himself overthrown and beheaded in honour of Charles' memory.

Shampoo

Until the second half of the 20th Century, the human race managed perfectly well without a special type of soap for washing hair. Instead, people managed with various animal-fat based soaps and grease related products. Indeed, many people didn't wash their hair at all. In 1953 however, an American entrepreneur and part-time trapeze artist called Kasey Herbert thought that he could make a fortune by convincing people that they needed special soap for their hair and he launched the world's first shampoo. The name was chosen through a competition where people were invited to put forward suggestions which were then put to the public vote - an innovative method of promotion that is used to this day by Simon Cowell to flog crap pop acts.

Gas

There are many gasses in nature, some of which are even produced by people - known as burps and farts depending on which end they emerge from. Air is a gas, as is hydrogen which is used to build exploding airships.

A more useful gas is helium - known as laughing gas. It got this name because people who lived near the swamps where it was discovered had long believed in spirits which inhabited the swamps which were believed to have a distinctive laugh reminiscent of the English comic actor Kenneth Williams. The scientists who discovered helium believed that the gas itself was somehow responsible for the laughing noise - it later proved to have been Williams himself, whose hobby was lurking in swamps and cackling.

One interesting family of gasses is the noble gasses - these glow when electricity is passed through them and so can be used as pretty coloured lights. They include neon, argon, xenon, radon, tampon, parthenon, vogon and photon torpedo.

The most boring of all gasses is nitrogen. It doesn't do anything.

Tony Blair

Hamish Anthony MacBlair was born in Edinburgh in 1953. He had an unhappy childhood due to his allergy to porridge and the bullying he suffered at school due to his English accent. His one friend was a shy young A-student called Gordon Broon who, due to his strict religious upbringing, refused to join in the porridge jokes. Despite Gordon's friendship, Hamish emigrated to England at the first opportunity. To fit in, he dropped the 'Mac' from his surname and used his second Christian name as the English found it impossible to correctly pronounce 'Hamish.'

Tony soon resolved to become a lawyer and politician, having been told that this was where the real money was, and he soon managed to get himself adopted as a candidate for the Labour Party. He lost the election for Beaconsfield but impressed the Party Leader Michael Foot (104) and was selected as candidate for the safe Labour seat of Sedgefield - although the legend that the people of Sedgefield held street parties in celebration is believed to be untrue. Tony won the election and entered Parliament in 1983.

Tony moved swiftly trough the ranks of the Party enjoying an ever increasing importance, salary and public profile under the leadership of Neil Kinnock and John Smith. He formed an alliance with his old friend Gordon Broon, who had also gone into politics, and by 1994 when John Smith died the two old pals were the dominant figures in the Party. It was Tony rather than Gordon who gained the leadership - this time his English accent and porridge phobia worked in his favour. Gordon dutifully accepted this turn of events with his characteristic good grace.

The Labour Party won the 1997 election under Tony's leadership and he became Prime Minister giving him a once in a lifetime opportunity to help the less privileged members of British society. His premiership was marked by numerous successes - he helped the poor by charging them to go to university, helped the people of Northern Ireland by claiming all the credit for the Peace Process and helped the people of the world by invading their countries so that they to could benefit from Tony's leadership. His proudest moment came after he relinquished the leadership of the country to his old friend Gordon Broon when, in 2008, he was voted Britain's richest Prime Minister.

Cows

The cow (bovus moous) is a popular and friendly farm animal which is bred by many cultures for its meat, its milk, its leathery hide and its manure. Cows grow out of calves and the eat grass, preferring this to milk which they normally give away to people. Male cows are called bulls, unless they have been castrated in which case they are called bullocks (as in 'How do you tame a bull? Cut off it's bullocks).

However the day of the cow may be drawing to an end as cow ownership comes under concerted attack from environmentalists, who blame the methane produced by cows for global warming, and from animal rights activists opposed the practice of shaking cows violently to produce whipped cream.

Bears

Bears are big shaggy mammals that evolved from primitive cats. They enjoy eating honey, ants and occasionally people, although only when they are exceptionally hungry. Most bears live in the northern hemisphere - the few that live in the southern hemisphere spin in the opposite direction.

Bears are terrific singers and are known for adopting stray children who have wandered into the jungle. They are, however, constantly annoyed at being confused with pandas which are most definitely not bears.

Polar bears are unique in the bear world due to their love of perching precariously on pinnacles of ice. No other bears do this.

X Factor

The X Factor is a successful television show in the UK where talentless amateurs perform for the enjoyment of those members of the population who have become bored with watching people who actually know what they are doing and have some aptitude for it.

Stalin

Stalin was born in Georgia* in 1878. He was an unremarkable boy at school despite his many attempts to attract attention, first by contracting the fashionable disease of smallpox and later by wearing an amusing false moustache - a habit he would take into later life.

At age 16 he joined a seminary where he and his classmates produced a great deal of seminal fluid, in the traditional manner. Young Stalin quickly became bored with this and, having discovered the works of Lenin, he decided to go off to become a Revolutionary.

His career was soon interrupted by the First World War - Stalin was conscripted to fight in the Russian army but got off on medical grounds when he complained about the terrible rash on his upper lip caused by the false moustache.

Things were soon looking up for Stalin, however, as his hero Lenin managed to trick Russia into making him their new leader during the Russian Revolution. Stalin was at Lenin's right hand as the new Communist regime set about the difficult task of freeing the peasants and workers from their miserable existence by killing them all. When Lenin died it was Stalin to whom the nation turned to continue the many successful population control policies that had been implemented by the Communists.

The Communists main ideological enemies were the German Nazis who had a rival plan for killing lots of people that threatened to outdo Stalin's greatest achievement. Their leader, a tiny little man called Adolf Hitler, even had his own amusing false moustache. Stalin ordered an immediate increase in false moustache production and the Germans responded by ordering an immediate invasion of Russia with the aim of capturing the false moustache works at Stalingrad. The attempt failed and, ultimately, the Russians were able to occupy most of Eastern Europe. The irony was that this left Stalin ruling over a great many more people than he had started out with, undoing at a stroke twenty years of depopulating. It was enough to drive Stalin insane and he died soon after, his false moustache being preserved for the nation in a glass case in Red Square.

*A bit of Russia that was founded by Confederate refugees who had gone east in search of less freedom.

Beaker People

The Beaker People were a stone age nation who lived in Europe between 2800 – 1900 BC. The term was coined by the famous archaeologist John Abercrombie who named them after his favourite muppet as he believed their language consisted of high pitched 'me-me-me-me' sounds.

The Beaker People's society was, like our own, marked by sharp divisions in wealth. As such, they were the only prehistoric people to develop a caste of sociologists who documented the growing wealth-gap and worried about relative poverty.

The Beaker people were responsible for many technological innovations including bronze and pottery but they were completely incapable of mastering third generation mobile phones.

Vaccination

Vaccination is a plot by Western governments allied with the pharmaceutical industry to kill us all by eradicating many fatal diseases and so making us all live until we perish from old age. Bastards!

Edward the Confessor

Edward was the eldest son of Ethelred the Unready, one of a surprising number of English kings who were called Ethel. He was driven into exile when England was taken over by King Canute and went to live in Normandy which was then, as now, the world's favourite exile destination. It was during this period that Edward earned his nickname after he got off Europe's first recorded drugs charge by reaching a plea bargain with the DA and testifying against his former criminal buddies.

He returned to England as King in 1041 after the Danes decided to give up ruling and concentrate on their bacon business and on developing new types of pastry. He married Edith, daughter of Godwin, but the union failed to produce an heir, mostly due to Edward's refusal to sleep in the same building as his wife so as to maintain his purity. He instead developed a novel approach to the succession, promising the throne to every third person he met. This policy worked really well right up to the point where Edward died and a queue of heirs apparent began to form outside the royal palace asking when the Coronation was. As well as Harold Godwinson,who was the most powerful noble in the land, the list of candidates included William the Conqueror, Edgar the Aetheling, Eric the Red and Mack the Knife. They all agreed to settle the matter in the most diplomatic way available, by fighting a great big war. The war was eventually won by William who defeated Harold not at Hastings, as is often presumed, but at a place called Battle. Now what are the chances of that happening?

Global Warming

Global warming is the cause of all rain, snow, sunshine, tornadoes, tsunamis, floods, hailstones, plagues of frogs, coastal erosion, droughts, monsoons, extinctions, drizzle, coldness, spider population explosions, cloud, lunar eclipses, economic recessions, water related conflicts, teenage pregnancies, crime and terrorism since 1985. All rain, snow, sunshine, tornadoes, tsunamis, floods, hailstones, plagues of frogs, coastal erosion, droughts, monsoons, extinctions, drizzle, coldness, spider population explosions, cloud, lunar eclipses, economic recessions, water related conflicts, teenage pregnancies, crime and terrorism that happened before this date was caused by something else.

People who make jokes about the tendency to ascribe everything bad that happens to global warming are worse than Hitler.

Moles

Moles are nature's lowest rodents. They are such scumbags that they actually take pride in the holes that they live in.

Recent research has shown that moles have surprisingly good eyesight. For many years it had been believed that they were blind but molologists working round the clock have demonstrated that they are in fact such lazy bastards that they only open their eyes for 23 seconds per day.

OMG

Internet speak that stands for Okay, More Gravy. It is used by waiters who have agreed to bring more gravy.

Zebra

Monochrome horse.

Sir Francis Drake

It was clear from early in the life of Sir Francis Drake that he would achieve greatness - he was, for instance, the only boy in his class with a knighthood. Drake grew up in Devon in the 1540s and surprised his parents by turning his back on a comfortable life managing the family teashop, instead choosing to go to sea.

He was soon on his way to the new world, sailing in an expedition accompanied by Sir Jim Hawkins aboard the Hispaniola but the mission was betrayed to the Spanish at the Mexican port of San Juan de Ulua by a one-legged treasure-obsessed man with a parrot on his shoulder. Drake escaped but continued to nurture a lifelong hatred of the Spanish and a deep-seated prejudice towards the one-legged community.

Drake decided to circumnavigate the earth, after a small but embarrassing delay when his second mate misheard him and recruited a Rabbi instead of a crew. He set off in a ship named Pelican which he later renamed The Golden Hind, quoting an early and unsuccessful Shakespeare sonnet

'Thine Hind shines like a Golden vision, as if the sun doth shine from within.'

Drake achieved numerous things as he sailed around the world, discovering the butternut squash, capturing Spanish treasure ships and claiming Oregon for Queen Elizabeth - although this was soon given back as Elizabeth had better taste. Drake returned to England with his fame and fortune assured.

Drake became Deputy-Admiral of the Royal Navy and so was given the job of stopping the Spanish Armada when it finally turned up in 1588, famously refusing to break off his 'game of bowls' with the Plymouth Hoe. He was second in command to Lord Howard of Effingham, who got his name because of his foul language when told of the Spanish declaration of war - the ladies of the court were said to have heard him Effing them all night. The Armada was defeated at the Battle of Gravelines and England was safe.

Drake continued to spend his life at sea, finally dying on yet another expedition to the New World. Queen Elizabeth herself went into mourning, dining on duck for a week in his memory.

Plato

Plato was the legendary Greek philosopher and plate-spinner who invented friendship. He was born around 430 BC and was named Aristocles. However he soon grew bored with life and ran away to become a travelling performer, inventing the noble art of plate-spinning around 410 BC.

He went on to share his plate-spinning duties with a band of apprentices (who included the young Aristotle) which gave him more time to invent friendship, having become disillusioned with the constant sex that characterized ancient Greek life. He also became a philosopher, following in the footsteps of Socrates, the famous Brazilian footballer-philosopher.

Onion

The onion is nature's most delicious fruit. It can be used in many dishes including onion soup, onion stew, onion curry and onion sandwiches. The French believe that the onion has aphrodisiac qualities. They are wrong.

Arachtopus

Rare sea-going spider found only off the coast of Cumbria in the Irish Sea. The UK government denies any connection with the Sellafield nuclear power plant.

Paul Newman

Paul Newman, the famous actor, heterosexual and political activist, was born in Southern Argentina in 1925. During the War he served in the Pacific Theatre which is where he discovered his love of acting. After the War he moved to Hollywood where he soon became one of the world's most famous stars. He had the lead role in such movies as The Rustler, Butch Sundance and the Creosote Kid and The Stig.

Newman became politically active during the Sixties, and was placed on Richard Nixon's enemies list due to his habit of turning up at political functions doing his excellent Nixon impression, pulling his trouser pockets inside out, getting his knob out and doing his impression of an elephant.

Newman later repented his Sixties liberalism and decided to devote himself to his new sauce company, all the profits of which he donated to right-wing militias. He later drew up his own enemies list which included Leslie Nielsen, Ayatollah Khomeini and Fidel Castro. He spent his final years doing stand-up comedy alongside his partner David Baddiel.

Shithole, Alabama

Shithole, Alabama is the legendary 'disappearing town'. The town was founded in 1776 in what was then British Georgia by Roger Hubblestubb who named it after the town of his birth - Shitehole, Lincolnshire in England.

The name of the town of Shitehole derives from the Anglo-Saxon placename Schyde-Hall. Schyde was a word that meant 'meadow' and hall has the same meaning as it does today. Schydehall therefore referred to a hall built by a meadow.

Shithole, Alabama however increasingly found itself becoming the object of derision and, in 1872, the town officially petitioned the State government asking for its name to be changed. Unfortunately, the Governor of the day had a grudge against the town having spent an unhappy weekend there with his mistress several years previously and he refused the request.

The decision came to haunt the proud State as a long procession of comedians from the North made the trip to Shithole in search of new ways to make fun of the town. Luckily, the Federal Government came up with a possible solution in the late 1940s when it made the decision to site one of its secret alien-dissection facilities in the town. To cover up the location, the name of Shithole was stricken from all US maps and official records - to this day it remains an offence to give directions to the town. The move was so successful that the only reliable records of the town are to be found not in America but in the British Library in London where the correspondence of Roger Hubblestubb himself is kept.

Henry VIII and his Six Wives

King Henry was known by several names during his long reign; Henry the Younger, Henry the Fabulous, Henry the Hippo, Henry the Fat Old Git and finally plain old Henry VIII. Henry was born at Greenwich in 1491 with a new time zone being established in his honour.

He became king in 1509 and quickly signed England up for membership of the Holy League, narrowly avoiding relegation in the 09/10 season thanks to a superior goal difference to Spain. Needing to strengthen his squad, Henry persuaded the relegated Spanish to let him marry their star princess, Catherine of Aragon. Enjoying the experience enormously, he swiftly acquired a further 5 wives, in defiance of tradition.

Although popular in England the 'many wiffe policy,' as it is dubbed in contemporary documents, brought Henry into conflict with the Roman Catholic Church which insisted that one wife was enough for anyone or, at the very least, one at a time. The Pope, who wasn't allowed to have any wives at all, refused to endorse the new arrangement and so, in retaliation, Henry started the Reformation. This began 400 years of conflict between people who support Glasgow Rangers and people who support Glasgow Celtic.*

As he got old, fat, bald and sick, however, six wives became a bit much for Henry to handle and he decided to get rid of some of them. His marriage to Catherine of Aragon was annulled on grounds of incest as she had previously been married to his brother. His marriage to Anne of Cleves was annulled after she agreed that they had never actually rocked the Kasbah. She was given the title of 'The King's Sister' (more incest) and given a castle of her own to live in. His marriages to his two sexiest wives, Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard, were also annulled with the queens being executed after Henry realized that he couldn't afford all these divorce settlements. Jane Seymour avoided the same fate by cleverly dying from an infection. This left Catherine Parr who, as the cheapest wife, was kept on to cook the meals, look after the children and nurse the now senile old king.

The King died in 1547 and the country was plunged into mourning, not least Catherine Parr, who is described in the chronicles as 'doing cartwheels of grief.'

*A measure of human progress is that only people who live in Scotland and Northern Ireland will know what this means.

Sporting Innuendo

Sport provides many opportunities for sexual innuendo and double entendres. The very word itself can be used in this way with the help of a nudge and a wink as in, 'your wife, does she like a bit of sport?'

The potential for innuendo in sport was first noticed during a Test match between England and West Indies when batsman Peter Willey was facing the great West Indian bowler Michael Holding and the commentator announced that, 'The bowler's Holding the batsman's Willey.' Commentators were soon taking every opportunity to make a quip about Ian Botham 'Not quite getting his leg over' and the field of sporting innuendo has never looked back

Other sports were quick to follow Cricket's example. Rugby provided several obvious examples with its funny shaped balls, big ugly hookers, aggressive rucking and sweaty scrummaging. American sports have, however, been slow to catch on as Americans have no sense of irony.

Rats

Known by ornithologists as non-flying pigeons, rats are the 14th largest rodents. They make terrible pets due to their smell, fleas, diseases and habit of trying to eat you while you are asleep.

Erectile Dysfunction Society

The Erectile Function Society was founded in 1901 by the concerned citizens of Baltimore in The USA with the motto, 'This is harder than it looks, you know.' The cause of fighting erectile dysfunction remained unpopular, however, despite the support of President Wilson who's attention was distracted from the problem by the outbreak of the Great War.

Treatment of the problem remained primitive, although considerable interest was aroused by a new oral treatment that was developed during the 1960s by a group of medically qualified swingers.

The real breakthrough came during the 1980s with the release in the UK of a charity record, 'The Only Way is Up' following the example of Band Aid. This was soon followed by the release in America of 'Get on Up, Although We Won't Judge You if You Can't Tonight'. The proceeds of these hugely successful records were used to develop the new drug Viagra and the terrible affliction of erectile dysfunction was finally vanquished. With its job done, the Society formally wound itself up in June 2006.

Cat Swing

One cat swing is the internationally accepted measure of sufficient room size.

Cheese wire

It is a little known fact that Stilton cheese conducts electricity better than copper wire. This has been suppressed for the last fifty years by the big copper manufacturers. Tell the people!

Substitute swearwords

For use in situations where one would normally turn the air blue but where one is in the presence of a small child or elderly relative. Eg. Flip, fudge, sugarlumps, freaky deaky, flippity-poo, Hell's bells, brown, clam gatherer, etc.

Quentin Tarantino

Tarantino, who's name is Italian for 'little spider,' is an American film director who sometimes puts himself in his films a tradition that he started during his first film, 'Reservoir Dogs' when he replaced Sir Ian McKellan who walked off the set after refusing to utter what became the movie's most famous line, when Mr. Pink says 'let's go to the reservoir, Rover!'

Tarantino later became a very political director, notably with his anti-Clinton polemic Kill Bill parts 1 and 2 starring Uma Thurman as Hilary. This made him enormously popular in Bush's America and earned him a place on the White House Staff where he wrote most of Bush's most memorable speeches.

Tarantino has, since the election of Barak Obama, become a recluse after retiring to his Alabama ranch and pledging never again to make another movie.

Bacon Bread

A tasty and nutritious meal for those who can not be bothered making a bacon sandwich.

Bombay Shitehawk

The most famous Indian bird, the Bombay Shitehawk is famous for its voracious appetite. It is normally a timid and solitary little bird but if unable to find sufficient carrion it has been known to band together with other shitehawks to attack and eat cats, small dogs, baby elephants and, occassionally, human children. The government in New Dehli is considering whether to order a cull of the birds but faces opposition from the people of Mumbai (as Bombay is now called) who believe that if the shitehawk were ever to leave the town then a great disaster will befall the nation, a superstition which they decided to copy from the Tower of London after reading about it in a travel guide.

Wrexham

Wrexham is a town in Wales. There is evidence of human habitation in the area from 8000 BC and the town is believed to have got its name from its use by neolithic tribesmen as a site for scrapping their unwanted pigs.

Wrexham became famous for its leather industry and the leather-makers guild continues to be at the heart of the town's civic life - they recently appointed David Dickinson as their ceremonial grand-master.

During the Industrial Revolution Wrexham became a centre of the iron industry after the founding of the Bersham Ironworks by John Wilkinson - known as 'Iron-Mad Wilkinson. Following in his footsteps, a steelworks was opened by 'Steel-Crazy Stephenson' and a condom factory by 'Rubber-Loving Johnston.'

Anteaters

Anteaters are, by extraordinary coincidence, animals that eat ants and they came third in the 'Most Unimaginative Name Competition 2006.' As well as ants, anteaters sometimes eat termites and sandwiches.

Contrary to popular opinion, anteaters are not natural allies of aardvarks.

Anteaters walk on their knuckles because deep down they want to be monkeys.

Anteaters have astonishingly long tongues. As such, lesbianism is rife amongst anteater populations.

Wallabies

Wallabies are marsupials that aspire to be kangaroos.

Kissing

In Continental Europe it is traditional to greet friends with a platonic kiss, although the custom varies from country to country. In France, for instance, they greet each other with a kiss on each cheek while in Belgium you would greet your friend with three kisses on alternate cheeks. The Italian politician, Silvio Burlosconi, insists on being welcomed with a kiss on all four cheeks.

In the Anglo-Saxon world, by contrast, kissing is considered to be an erotic activity involving the touching of lips and, if your luck is in, tongues. Anthropologists believe kissing may have evolved from primitive grooming behaviour or mothers masticating food for their young. Other, more sensible anthropologists think that it is just fun.

Nuts

Nuts come in numerous varieties and in all shapes and sizes. The walnut is generally regarded by nut experts as the Prince of the nut world, although at a recent conference in Geneva academics from Oxford University proposed that the hazelnut be promoted to parity with the walnut at the top of the nut tree. Understandibly, the suggestion was angrily shouted down by the audience.

Some nuts are poisonous - the macadamia nut for example, as well as mixed nuts in arsenic which were briefly marketed by KP as an exciting alternative to dry-roasted peanuts.

Peanuts are not, in fact, nuts at all. Rather, they are dried peas. In view of this, the European Commission is currently considering whether they should force nut sellers to sell them as pea-based nut substitutes.

Nuts is also an informal word for testicles - doctors say that if yours are actually the size of a nut then you should seek medical help immediately.

Electricity

Electricity is the magical force that is used to power televisions, lightbulbs, robots and George Foreman grills. Americans often claim the electricity was invented by the famous librarian Benjamin Franklin but it was in fact discovered by an Italian sorcerer called Alessandro Volta. Volta learned how to fill little metal pipes with electricity, put them inside torches and make light.

Aristotle

Aristotle rhymes with bottle and throttle but is best known as the name of an Ancient Greek philosopher. As a young man, he was the student of Plato, the famous plate-spinner and inventor of friendship, but he became bored by the constant circus-skills training and the lack of rumpy-pumpy and set off to seek his fortune as a philosopher in Athens.

Aristotle studied every possible subject, writing on ethics, politics and aesthetics, and inventing logic and xenophobia. He then returned to Macedon to become tutor and mentor to the future Alexander the Great, teaching him how to be a virtuous king, how to despise foreigners and how to spin plates.

Aristotle thought that everything was made up of five elements, earth, air, fire, water and aether which just goes to show that he was an idiot. All the same, he looked great in a statue.

Bill Clinton

Politician, incompetent cannabis smoker and, currently, husband of failed US Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Clinton was born in the town of Hopeless, Alabama where he attended Elementary School alongside a young Hank Williams. It was here that he took up the Saxophone after his attempts to learn how to play the violin were frustrated when the heat of the Deep South kept warping his bow.

As a young man, Clinton joined the Boy's Nation, a kind of Democratic Party Hitler Youth. On a trip to the White House he met the celebrity philanderer John F Kennedy, who was the President of the time.

Clinton soon became Arkansas Attorney General, which was the runners-up prize in the 1978 election to the House of Representatives. He went on to become Governor, which afforded him many opportunities to sign death warrants on mentally impaired prisoners. From here it was only a matter of time before he fulfilled his destiny and ran for President. He defeated Paul Tsongas, the best Democratic President America never had, and Ross Perot, the shortest, maddest, angriest President America never had.

Clinton was known as one of the most accommodating American Presidents, often offering female visitors the chance to see his White House staff or to help him conduct some private polling. Apart from that he did as little as possible, failed to bring peace to the Middle East or Bosnia and so appalled Republican voters that they thought that George W Bush looked like a good bet. All in all, he was one of America's greatest leaders.

The Hound of the Baskervilles

A literary classic featuring Shylock Holmes, one of William Shakespeare's most famous creations.

There have been over one hundred movie adaptations of The Hound of the Baskervilles starring 87 different actors in the role of Holmes.

Aardvark

The Aardvark is the animal without which no dictionary would be complete. It was given the name, which means earth-pig in Dutch, due to its resemblance to Queen Charlotte of England, the famously ugly wife of George III.

Aardvarks have unusual teeth which wear down and continually regrow. The same is true of the male aardvark's sexual organs, making him the laughing stock of the anteater world.

The Aardvark is known for being very old-fashioned, refusing to move with the times like its closest relative, the elephant shrew, and this is largely responsible for the aardvark's low socio-economic standing.

The Man with Three Buttocks

Once a Monty Python sketch. Now a six part documentary series on Channel 5 with NBC working on a version for the American market.

Edward II

Born in Caernarfon Castle on Christmas Day 1284. Died in Agony with a red hot poker up his bottom.

Edward II achieved the unique feat in English history of losing a battle to the Scots, at Bannockburn. Then he invented the handkerchief, became 'close' to his handsome young favourite, got deposed by his wife and her lover, invented disco dancing, established colleges at Oxford and Cambridge Universities and at the University of East Anglia and got murdered making him one of England's most exciting monarchs.

Lemur

Lemurs are like backward monkeys - the simian equivalent of someone from Alabama or Gloucestershire, if you will. Despite this, they are jolly little fellows and as such they are Madagascar's number one tourist attraction as well as it's most important host for dangerous parasitic insects. That's right, the sort of insect that burrows into your skin and lays eggs.

In less enlightened times, lemur fur was much sought after for the manufacture of hats and gloves, the lemur being a cheap and cheerful substitute for mink.

The lemur's stripey tail often leads to it being confused with the raccoon. This intensely annoys the lemurs but recent research has shown that it hardly bothers the raccoons at all.

The Pope

The Pope is a Catholic...or is he?

Vatican records show that no Pope has ever burped without first covering his mouth. Dan Brown is believed to be working on a 'novel' that will reveal this to be a terrible, terrible lie.

Greece

Greece is the nation of which people are most likely to beware - especially at Christmas and Birthdays. The reason for this is lost in the mists of time but is thought to be something to do with someone called Troy.

Greece produced some of the world's oldest literature, although this includes hardly any science fiction. Indeed, the only example of Ancient Greek Science Fiction is Ulysses 31 in which the eponymous hero travels around space having adventures. It was written around 700 BC by Archilocus of Paros who feared that the younger were losing interest in literature, beguiled by the exciting new world of Mathematics.

Other Greek inventions include goat's cheese, goat's milk and goat burgers as well as homosexuality and accordions.

Greece fought in both World Wars on the side of the Allies but hardly anybody noticed.

Aliens

In the 1930's, when they were invented, aliens tended to come from Mars or, occasionally, the Moon. Since then, however, aliens have been coming from ever greater distances, sometimes even from other galaxies. By astonishing bad luck none of these super-intelligent hyper-advanced extra-terrestrial travelers have ever managed to make contact with any scientist, linguist or government leader who may have been able to understand them. Instead, they have had to make do with a long succession of loners, weirdos and hicks from the American Midwest.

Aliens have big eyes and elongated limbs for some reason. Other than that, they are quite like humans, with feelings, taste and a sense of fair play.

Flying Saucers used to be very popular amongst aliens but have long since gone out of fashion. These days, aliens prefer cigar shaped spaceships which are considered to be more stylish.

Mick Jagger

Mick Jagger, once known as 'England's Michael Jackson' before he successfully sued, is the grandfather of British Rock and Roll. With his band, the Rolling Stones, he was almost the most popular musician of the 1960s (after the Beatles) and then almost the most popular musician of the 1970s (after Led Zepplin) but Mick has managed to keep going long after his old rivals have given up. This success is mostly due to his absolute shamelessness allied to his legendary love of money.

Jagger's name is often linked to stories of debauchery and excess during the Swinging Sixties but many of the stories are inaccurate. The famous incident involving Marianne Faithful and a Mars Bar, for instance, is known to be fictitious. It was, in fact, a Curly Wurly.

Mick continues to tour with the Stones - a sad indictment of the depleted value of the British State Pension.

Belgium

Belgium has long enjoyed a reputation as Europe's favourite place for a battle having hosted wars between Spain and Holland, Britain and France, and Britain and Germany (twice). None of them wanted Belgium, especially, but they all agreed that it would be better to wreck Belgium rather than their own countries.

Belgium's only historical achievement of note was in the Congo where it gained the distinction of being the worst colonial government in 19th century Africa, beating off tough competition from the Germans.

There are no famous Belgians

Give Us A Clue

Give Us A Clue was an intellectual television entertainment programme which took the form of a game of charades played by A-list celebrities. Michael Aspel was the chairman, except for the famous 1989 series in which Michael Parkinson stepped in after Aspel received the offer of more lucrative work, and there were two regular team captains. Team members would have two minutes in which to act out the name of a book, television programme or movie for their teammates to guess. Points would be awarded for correct answers.

One team was captained by Una Stubbs - her most famous performance came in 1984 when her team took just seconds to recognise her 'Fanny By Gaslight.'

The real star of the show, however, was Lionel Blair, father of the great Labour Party Prime Minister Ramsey MacDonald. He was a brilliant performer - who can forget the 1979 performance when Lionel, exhausted and on his knees, finished off 'An Officer and a Gentleman' in under two minutes. He wasn't always successful, though. On one occassion Lionel finished the two minutes with tears of frustration welling up in his eyes at not being allowed the use of his mouth to finish off 'Two Gentlemen of Verona.'

**NB. This is the Humphrey Lyttleton Memorial Definition

Athiesm

Surely the oddest development in the history of religious thought has been the rise of evangelical Atheism which has recently been voted 'Most Dogmatic Religion 2009,' beating Wahhabi Islam into second place.

A new threshold was passed in 2006 when the first Atheist missionaries arrived in Salt Lake City, although they met with little success. The Mormons, it seems, did not have the faith required to become good Atheists.

Another notable development was the series of worldwide protests after a Danish newspaper published a cartoon mocking Richard Dawkins.

Ribs

Possibly the most amazing, fantastic, delicious food known to humankind (when marinaded in 'original' sauce.) The precise animal of origin remains a mystery.

Also the bit of Adam that God used to make Eve out of.

Goths

The Goths are believed to have originated in Scandinavia. Indeed, scholars have recently put forward the theory that the Baltic Sea was named after the genital parasite which plagued the early Gothic civilization.

The Goths soon left the north, reappearing in the historical record on the eastern border of the Roman Empire, making them the only people in history to leave Sweden to settle in the Ukraine. The realization of this mistake is believed to be the reason behind the Goths' trademark gloomy disposition.

At the time, the Goths were led by Alaric the Goth, runner up in the 'Least imaginative surname competition AD375.'* Angry at his defeat, Alaric led the Goths into the Roman Empire, sacking Rome itself.

Alaric's Goths eventually settled in Aquitania (southern France) and Spain. They adopted the local practice of taking siesta in the afternoon and, during one of these naps, they were conquered by the Germanic Franks who had no time for such laziness. Thus, the Goths disappeared from history until being resurrected in the late 20th century by weird middle-class teenagers.

* Suetonius the Younger records the winner of the competition as a certain Mr. A. T. Hun.

Worms (Earthworms)

It was, as every Sunday School pupil knows, a humble earthworm who was sent by God to comfort Moses in his hour of need. And so, the Bible teaches us that the worm is considerably more interesting than the dull brown wriggly stringy thing it appears to be.

The Earthworm has a brain, a single eye, a mouth and a nose at either end. This is quite unfortunate for the worm as it also has an arse at either end and is prone to bouts of diarrhea. The widely believed myth that if you chop an earthworm in two it will become two worms is of course, untrue as it needs both arses to be functioning to survive.

The earthworm is not an insect. It is, in fact, a type of spider possessing eight tiny rudimentary legs and the habit of eating its partner after performing the procreative act.

Blade Runner

Blade Runner was a science fiction film that was released in 1982 which, like all science fiction movies, completely failed to predict the future. It starred Harrison Solo, who had become an established actor playing Han Ford in the Star Wars films despite being acted off the screen by a grunting man in a yeti costume.

Blade Runner has 137 different endings - Ridley Scott, who directed the film, was a visionary who correctly predicted the invention of DVDs and the internet and so was keen to include both lots of 'DVD extras' and material to be debated between nerds in forums.

Blade Runner is based on a short story by Philip Dick called, 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.' The American Guild of Science Fiction Writers found in a survey in 1998 that 98% of respondents had heard of the book but only 0% had actually read it.

Other ways in which Blade Runner is better that Star Wars include the total lack of puppets and the fact that Darryl Hannah is much sexier that Carrie Fisher