Russian Revolution

The late nineteenth century was the golden age of Russian musical theatre, making stars of the leading performers. The greatest star of them all was Nicholas Romanov who, in the old tradition, was duly named 'Star of all the Russias' and given absolute power to rule the Russian people.

This move was fiercely resisted by the Russian Communists who regarded theatre as a bourgeois plot (Karl Marx turned against the performing arts when he got dropped from the Marx Brothers after their manager decided that Karl's beard distracted from Groucho's Moustache.) In 1916, they seized their chance to overthrow the Star's government. The First World War was on and the Russian tradition of being governed by the country's most famous musical act was proving to be ill-suited to the era of industrial warfare. Star Nicholas was overthrown and the Communists were able to seize power.

The Communists were led by Lenin, who later went on to find fame of his own alongside Paul McCartney in the Beatles, proving once and for all that Karl's ideas were definitely superior to Groucho's.

Rugby

There are four codes of Rugby; Union, Morse, League and Da Vinci. Union is by far the most popular, despite the strict qualification rules it imposes on players which restrict participation to those who own property worth £100,000 guineas or more. The main defining feature of Rugby League is the so-called 'six tackle' rule which stipulates that the tackle size of all players be at least six inches. This distinguishes it from Rugby Union which the great player Will Carling famously called, 'a game for men of all sizes.'

The most distinctive rule of Rugby is that you are only allowed to pass the ball backwards. As a result, no points have ever been scored in any rugby match with the result instead being decided by which team has the fattest prop forward.

Legend has it that the game of Rugby was invented by a pupil at Rugby School who, during a game of football, picked up the ball and ran with it thus starting that great English tradition of being sent off for dissent after being penalized for deliberate handball.

Germany

Germany is the bit between France and Poland and is a favoured holiday destination due to the fine reputation of its jolly and easy-going populace. 

Surveys have identified the Germans as the national group most likely to get the name of their own country wrong.

Germany has long enjoyed a reputation as a peaceful and friendly country, with the exception of a small interlude when the country fell under the malign influence of a gang of Charlie Chaplin fans who wanted to stage a country-wide re-staging of "The Dictator".

Germany is the world's larger consumer of mutton and Europe's third largest exporter of screen doors.

Kilometre

Kilometres are the runt of the distance world, being somewhat shorter and punier than the more robust imperial mile. Kilometres fell out of use during the fifth century when the Roman Empire collapsed but were rediscovered during the Renaissance along with Art and Science. Kilometres were enthusiastically adopted by the French who were soon counting everything in units of 10. This eventually resulted in the French Revolution when the lower orders revolted when Queen Marie Antoinette suggested that people should use pounds and ounces rather than kilograms when measuring their cake ingredients.

Bi-plane

Bi-planes were flown extensively during the First World War - called bi-planes as they were able to 'fly both ways'. It was also due to the extraordinary percentage of fighter pilots who enjoyed going down diddley down down.

Bi-planes were favoured as the extra wings let them fly twice as high as planes with one set of wings. However the second set of wings went out of fashion in the roaring twenties and mono-planes have been all the rage ever since.

Internet

The Internet was invented by a network of super-intelligent computer programmers who wanted to spend more of their time looking at pictures of cats. The internet has developed a great deal since those days and is now fulfils an important function as the world's greatest generator of groundless scare stories.

Google Street View is an internet innovation which allows people to look up pictures of their own house. This saves them from going outside and looking at it. It has also caused alarm amongst people who actually believe that people all over the world are looking at them even though nobody is.

Corruption

The process by which the inhabitants of planet earth are governed. 

Farts

Farting is one of life's great pleasures, although this fact is more acknowledged amongst men than women. This is because men cannot bear children and farting is the nearest they can come to growing a new life inside them and then giving it life in a burst of noise and odour.

Isaac Asimov has speculated about the possibility of an alien species that might communicate by smell. In such a society it is quite possible that farting in a lift would be considered the most serious of crimes, punishable by death.

Gaining sexual satisfaction from the act of farting is known as windy-popophilia and is considered by sexologists to be the most perverted of all sex acts.