Endangered Animals

Endangered animals were invented in the 1970s to provide moral justification for zoos to keep animals caged for our viewing delight. As such, 93% of endangered animals are cute.

The top ten most endangered animals are (in reverse order);

10. The Giant Panda

9. The Lesser Manatee

8. The Long-Eared Marmoset

7. The Medium-Sized Panda

6. The Austrian Honey Bear

5. The Polar Chicken

4. The Dwarf Piglet

3. The Kenyan Stripeless Zebra

2. The Amazonian Elipotomus

1. The Javanese Tiger-Cow.

The story of the Kenyan Stripeless Zebra is particularly sad. This noble beast was once the dominant Zebra species but it has lost out in the evolutionary race to its stripey and thus harder to see cousin. Many conservationists refuse to accept the Javanese Tiger-Cow's place on the list after an investigation by Bild claimed that the only known specimen - which lives in Berlin Zoo - is in fact a common Jersey Cow with stripes painted on. This is fiercely denied by the animal's keeper.

I-Pad

The I-Pad is a sporting protection implement used by footballers. It was invented by Larry Cockburn after a conversation in a pub. Cockburn recalled; "We noted that a footballer's shins are protected from being kicked by shinpads. But what happens if he gets kicked in the eye? That's right, he gets blinded. So why not wear pads over the eyes as well?"

The obvious answer - that you wouldn't be able to see the ball if you had two bloody great pads over your eyes - didn't stop him from pressing ahead with the launch of his new product or from commissioning one of Europe's most prestigious advertising agencies, Saatchi and Saatchi, to market it. It was they who renamed it the I-Pad rather than Cockburn's preferred 'Eye Protection Shields' after a long and sometimes bitter argument. The marketing strategy was, alas, a failure and Cockburn Industries was wound up just one year later having sold a grand total of no units.

Cockburn is currently suing Apple for theft of his intellectual property after they used the expensively purchased name of his product for their latest pointless computer.