Cecil McGreggor - Man of Keys

Cecil was not born like you or I, and certainly not like you. He was the result of many hard years pained labours, the ultimate weapon, the ultimate solution. Cecil lead a normal life, but only as a cover. Like Clark Kent, but way less obvious that he was really the super-individual that everyone knew but politely ignored the obvious truth about. By day he was a key cutter. Whenever someone approached him, hey pretending to be cutting 10 keys simultaneously. Little did the onlookers realise, the weren't in his hands, they were his hands!

Cecil was born with 10 keys. One replacing each of his fingers. The use of the 10 keys were unknown to him, and the original plan of why someone would be genetically engineered to resemble a Caretaker's belt was known only to 1 man. The Great Marmaduke Sisemblade. T.G Marmaduke was a millionaire loner, who spent his fortune on creating things that only he could understand. Self drying raisins, Reusable eye-drops, edible sails. Cecil was his final creation, but Cecil was never told why he had keys for fingers, he just understood that it was all for the greater good (except for his left thumbkey, which he found out after about a month would unlock the front gates of the estate. Which was quite handy, because the gate stayed locked all the time, and it was a real nuisance to forget that particular key as it meant a 4 minute walk around to the hole in the garden wall which could be climbed over using a milk pail). But Cecil knew in his heart that the other 9 keys had far greater purposes, and he determined to determine what they were.

After spending 3 years working in the locksmiths, where he would spend every spare moment fingering keyholes, he realised that he could not just try every keyhole, but that there must be a quicker way.
"But there is" came a kitcheny voice from under a half-soled shoe "the winter man, he knows, he will tells".
"Don't you mean 'tell'".
"Yes." And with that grammatical deplurilisation, Cecil, picked up the half-soled shoe and its over verb-plurelicese of an owner and walked out the shop.
"I'm off to lunch now!" Cecil cried, forgetting that he didn't work with anyone, and wandered off down the busy shopper-packed road.

"You're very trusty" said the voice from the semi-boot.
"That's because your a very trustworthy individual."
"And howing did you known that?"
"I saw you completing a tax return form the other week. You couldn't remember whether to round your non returnable outgoings up or down, so you rounded up. That's very trustworthy".
"You saw that? Well, thankings."
"So where are we going?" asked Cecil.
"What did you meaning?" enquired Booty.
"Well where am I taking you? Where is this 'Winter man'?"
"YOU MEAN WE'VE NOT ARE IN SHOP NO MORE?!!" squealed Booty in shock.
"Well no, I need to go and see this Winter man so I can find out about my kefingers"
Slowly a small shape appeared through the darkness of the holey shoe. A golden eye appeared, like a copper coin glinting in a wishing well. "Brighting light?"
"So which way Booty?"
"Um.....through there." Said booty, directionlessly.
"What, the parked Volvo 440's boot?"
"....Yes."

So Cecil climbed in to the back of the estate, and sat there, under some old jackets, and rather overly read, worn copies of Nuts magazines.

"Now we are waited."

And so they did.....

The history of cork.

Cork is something that we are all endowed with possessing, whether it be for our recently scrapped bathroom scales, preserving our favourite wines, or embellishing garage doors. It has come to be an everyday occurrence that no-one is willing to stop for and think something along the lines of "Thank William G. Goldberg for this great invention".

And why would we? After all there was never anyone called William G. Goldberg, or not at least one who deserves cork-gratitude.

Cork was actually invented by the Romans, primarily as a mistake when they were actually trying to produce other things. Modern cork bears little resemblance to Roman cork (or Crokarium). Instead of the dark, bubbly matting, roman cork was infact made out of horse hair. Horse hair was known for its strength and attractive swatch of colourings. The tertiary reason for its ingrained attractivity was its apparent inability to be melted. Many roman warriors believed that the finest swords could be made by smelting horse hair.

This small time myth was made in to a big time legend, when roman leader at the time Chebreum Milnatxx stated that great riches would come from the man "qui preiumaauex gaudy horsey" (who span metal from horsey hair).

And so the chase was on. Many methods were tried. From simple iron smelting fires, to lava lamps, through to trying to pressurise them by putting them in an overinflated pouch of leather that was full of rocks and rolling them off roof tops. Though these ended with the rather serendipitous inventions of alloys, lava lamps and rolley-roofey, none of them could melt horse hair.

Until one day, when a horse was found frozen to death in the Alps. In an attempt to save it, it was set on fire. Sadly these heroic attempts failed. But what it did do was to turn the horse's lovely tail in to a puddle of pure guadyhorseyx. It seemed that in the haste to get rich, everyone had all made the same assumption, that all horse hair is the same. So when it came to cutting off a sample of hair, they all took it from the mane. We all know these days that main hair has no melting point, so they could never use it, but tail hair can be melted.

Once they had finished eating, the family ran the now cooled puddle down to the village elder. He looked at its weird colour and said "non quadus vivi logunberries" (it is without a use!). But as he stood up, his bare feet touched the frozen ground and he lept on to the roman cork. "Brashxlikeken! novi- fiesta!" he exclaimed, for his feet, though wet, were now gripped by this relatively warm material. It wasn't much use in the battle field, but roman cork was used up until the 1920's to line mountain paths, and bathroom scales.

Haikus aren't just for the Samurai

In an attempt to bring back haikus from the clutches of Japanese nobility and unclean intelligentsia, I've written some Haikus that can be used in more day-to-day situations:

snt u ths as txt.
Reed it on yr mobile fone
and learn to spell, dick.

Thought that this might help
to cushion the blow for you.
You're fat so you're dumped.

This ticket is for
thinking your hazard lights are
park anywhere lights

Happy birthday mate
here's a haiku `cause I'm poor
Where is the cake at?

I've heard that women
think that haikus are sexy
Can we go doink now?

An in depth report in to choking hazzards.

As part of a group study into choking on food (yes, an entire group of people and by that I mean two of us), we would like to release this important report into foods that are preferable when choking entitled: "What food is best to choke on?"

Firstly may I state that this study is based on theory. No one has choked on a foodstuff and had an enjoyable enough experience to tell me about it. Then again, I haven't asked anyone. Secondly, choking on a pound of cocaine does not count as "best to choke on". By best we mean most likely food to allow for survival, not which stuff will give you the widest girthed smile. And besides, cocaine is not a foodstuff.

So on with the study. First coming to mind is the humble olive. It has a built in safety device of having a hole all the way through. The problem is that the olive must be lined up correctly for its safety feature to work correctly. Given that in both axiseseses (how do you make that word a plurelacise?), there is only about 20 of the 90 degrees that are useful to breathing, so that’s 2/9 * 2/9 = 4/81. Not great odds.

Perhaps something that cannot cause a full obstruction. Polos? I've heard stories of St. John's ambulance (formally "Next stop, Heaven"), giving polos to heart attack victims. Apparently there is some lost panacial powers that Polos possess, they just forgot to tell anyone else. These sweets certainly would allow for better breathing, and would essentially dissolve over time.

Looking at the dissolving area, perhaps we want something that simply wouldn't survive long. Space dust? Painful, noisy and quite funny. But the embarrassment would be worth it.

Looking in to a more fruit/farm based view, is my associate Big Dave:

I would have to say something like bread, because of its ability to become mushy very quickly and as thus break apart easily, but hmm, would it stick inside because it can get sticky when its like that, very viscous….

Hmm, nothing crumbly because of flaking factor,

So in the report so far we have considered viscosity and flaking as factors that could prove troublesome, now pain might be a burgeoning incentive to work harder to dislodge, something like a chilli, but on the same hand could also damage the throat. All in all, we need a substance that is viscous enough not to dislodge the wrong way but not too viscous to become stuck and something that won’t crumble causing complications. Also pain becomes a factor in incentive but not in what makes it a good one to choke with. Now olives may prove to be magical food stuffs when it comes to choking but also similar items.

Blueberries, small and smooth, providing less friction but also may prove to be much too small and pose a risk in obvious size areas, now grapes may have a smoother skin but are about 5 times the size of a blueberry, the humble raspberry would seem good at first due to its hole and as thus the ability to draw breath, but at the same time it’s increased surface area due to it’s nodule like creation create friction, combined with the hole, which would also function as an easy escape for air during the dislodging procedure would possibly prove troublesome.

In all fruit seems to be ruled out due to an inconsistency in design and aerodynamics. We are in essence looking for something that allows passage of air from one direction whilst blocking it from the other, whilst also combining the above factors of viscosity, smoothness and lack of pain to an extent. I think some sort of hinged / valve operated, mild chilli the size of a raspberry would be the ultimate in ease of choking (is there such a thing O_o)

But failing this I believe the humble egg probably fried at a push scrambled (not a whole boiled one). The reason being that although not being a pleasure to look at afterwards (Although it doesn’t like part of your lung) it has a moveable side, a very flexible side if you will thus allowing the passage of air on the gentle in breath but will also provide adequate surface area for the powerful out breath! It also has viscosity enough to resist falling further into danger and also provides adequate lubrication for the out journey.

.

.

.

So that’s a piece of fried egg then.

Chicken and mushroom slice eating practices: A follow up report.

In my initial report I uncovered an unknown habit of orientating my chicken and mushroom slices so that they were chevron down (or "robus-originalus style"). This, I wasn't sure, my have been related to some evolutionary style learning based on bad experiences leading to the subconscious orientating of this particular midday snack.

I've now been fortunate enough to witness the disastrous events that follow a chevron away (the so called "diablos-sinistirus" style) positioned eating style. They were captured on camera phone shortly after the event, so that we can now bring these results to you as firm evidence of their occurrence, and how they seductively point towards a Darwinian theory of eating practice.

The result: As a left sided bite pulled away the chicken and pastry, the force quickly dissipated in to the higher up pastry. The higher up pastry (the pastry plateau), had little or no structural integrity in that direction, so swiftly it came away towards the eater. Thankfully my mind was on the food and not my work at the time, so my quick reactions allowed for a rapid cessation of eating and averted a culinary disaster. Next time I might not be so lucky.

Hangover - the diary

Good afternoon all. I'm feeling much better than I was about 5 hours ago. For those who haven't had a hangover for a while, I've kept a diary for this morning, so you too can understand why we should never drink to excess and expect no consequences.

9:10 coffee
9:15 nausea
9:35 ate mcCoys cheddar and onion crisps
9:40 sweating
9:47 starting eating chewing gum
9:59 headache
10:15 felt tired, put kettle on
10:20 worried about coffee tasting like mint, so got a glass of water.
10:32 tried to hold work-based conversation. Struggled.
10:56 weird cramp in legs
11:02 sweating
11:20 recollections of last night and oversleeping this morning is making me feel very guilty and remorseful.
11:48 realised my hand can't write properly.
12:03 stomach making lots of noise.
12:20 ate food. Feeling better
13:11 moved from coffee to tea
13:12 eating Jammie dodgers, feeling the sugar working.

The story of the sun and the wind

The sun and the wind were watching a man in a long coat when the wind said to the sun "Hey, I bet you that I get his jacket off". The sun, un-phased by the apparent brag replied "No you couldn't, but I bet I can!". And so the challenge was on. Firstly the wind tried. He huffed and puffed as much as he could at the man, but the man simply pulled his jacket around him as much as possible and clung on tightly to it.

"Ha!" said the sun, "now it is my turn", and the sun shone down on to the man. The man, now sweltering in heat, removed his jacket. The sun had won.

This is a dangerous children's story. I was told it in primary school and it has stuck with me. What I realise now, that I didn't at the time, was that it wasn't just suggesting that to get what you want, you need to bribe rather than blackmail, instead what it actually was saying to me and my 5 year old brain, was that to be able to get someone to let go of something, you should not try and pull it from them. To do this only demonstrates your desire to own it rather than them. Instead, by destroying the reason for them to have it, you are devaluing the item. Once they have little regard for it, they will be quicker to part with it. The sun also improved his chances by letting the wind go first, thus his change to warmth would have clashed with the man's body's ability to regulate temperature and caused him to make rasher decisions regarding his apparel.

So remember children, if you want something from someone else, first highlight a reason for them to have it, and then destroy the reason, finally giving them the chance to take it off their hands for a lower than reasonable price because of its now less worthwhile use.

I love children's stories