Coffee. Who was the first person to drink it and why? A contribution

Thank you Big Dave for this one (no that is not Big Dave above, that's my adopted father, drinking joe out of a jar. Go Pops!).

Back before captain Scott went outside for some time, captain Rott discovered the brown bean we know today as coffee. Known back then as brown god’s testies, they provided him sustenance during the long nights circling the south reading ring road (Obviously he was also famous for his complete lack of explorer’s guts, but was the first man to discover slough).

He stumbled across the beans when he was passing a local star bucks and ate from the little “taster trough”, and decided these were indeed amazing. From here on his travels he ate the beans (he stole his supplies from different cafes, never visiting the same one twice in one week).

It wasn’t until three years later that his son Scrott Rott, made the first cup of “joe”. He came across it when he was making instant noodles in a pan of boiling water tripped on some of his father leavings. By this point the captain Rott was horribly addicted to what he now called brown dark mistresses of glorification and gurning fun, and was in turn trying to hide the beans around the house but often left them strewn across the floor and in the path of any unwary on comers.

Scrott slipped on the beans and in a mad turn of events that followed. The beans being crushed by his foot flew into a coffee cup (which is ironic as the drink was named after the cup) and the noodles blinded the poor boy whilst the boiling water splashed into the cup making the drink we know and love today…which is strange as it wasn’t instant.

As a side note starbucks was not actually a coffee house at the time just a shop where people looked trendy and cool and looked at weird looking beans and scoffed at those less fortunate.

maths smaths

Something to help you while away your days (is that correct?):

3 Old ladies, called Doris, Helga and Xiangua go in to a shop to buy a TV together. They live in a 3 bedroom house and decide that they should buy a tv together so that they can save more money for their respective hobbies of knitting, croquet and assassination. The Tv they spy is just £30, so they each put £10 in and give the collected funds to Helga, who is the most trustworthy of the three, as she use to work for the local NatWest and knew everyone's salaries. Of course Xiangua may have been the most trustworthy, as neither Doris nor Helga knew what she did for a living so it could be argued that she was the most trustworthy for not giving away this secret. But Doris never trusted her for not being trusted with such information, so the two had not been getting on too well recently as a result.

So the 3 walk in to the shop and begin to look around even though they only want the TV. Doris spots some nice knitting needles that are £2 for 10, Helga eyes some lovely fishing rods at £15 each, and Xiangua eyes up the young boy at the counter, who's name later turns out to be Steven.

Helga, after her perusing reaches a close, walks up to the counter and speaks to the young man.

"That television, still £30?".

"Yes it is, and a fine example too. It has all the colours you could wish for, optional and variable audio and more channels than you collectively have eyes (19)".

"well that sounds wonderful. I'd like to buy it please"

And so the exchange between shopper and tv-monger is made and the three ladies leave in a column from tallest to shortest with their new purchase on point.

5 minutes and 12 seconds pass before the shop owner returns from his lunch break which was spent smoking a pipe and reading the middle 13 pages of the Daily Mail, and enquires as to the boy's time spent in charge.

"Good thankyou, I sold the tv".

"Did you reprice it as I asked?" enquired the owner. The boy said nothing but tried instead to give him a look of 'I know that you asked me but my silence my suggest to you that you never asked me, thus absolving me of my guilt'. Which failed miserably. "You didn't did you?". The question was rhetorical.

And so Steven Brangburger was given 500 pence made up of 8 50p coins and a pound coin by the shop owner due to his new role of intermediary to the tv owning ladies.

"Give this £5 to those ladies, quick! They can't have got far". Said the shop owner, unaware that two of the three ladies had run middle distances for the respective schools' sports teams.

And so Steven J. Brangburger ran out of the shop with half a thousand pennies lining his cotton pockets. As he caught sight of the three ladies, now dispersed from their initial ascending height formation, a wicked idea came in to his head. He could pretend that the TV wasn't the actually priced £25, but instead that it was £27. This way he could pocket 2 hundred pennies, and know that no-one would know.

Quickly he approached the ladies and explained the £27 mixup. Gratefully the ladies each received £1. Which at current exchange rate is about $2. It is here that we run up against the problem.

If the ladies have now spent £10 ($20) and each got £1 ($2) back, then they have each spent £9. If you add the nines together then you get £27 ($54). Adding the £2 that Steven Jarsbug Brangburger kept gives a grand total of £29 ($58). Given that this entire event happened in the USA, why has $2 gone missing?

ode to the obi

Sorry for all the regular readers, but a more serious post. Recent gradings at my martial arts club has left me thinking about the significance of the belt around our waist.

without our success, no belt but our white
tied on tight, pressed flat
worn with a smile, worn with pride
a symbol above just colour.

a sign for all, "I did this"
"This is my achievement", "this is mine"
though never more than cotton, sewn.
Our blood, sweat and tears now part.

though never a trophy forever kept
I remember where I stood
when my first belt, handed to me
and tied on with pride.

I did this.



Haiku -

Its colour like yours?
my belt fades in toil and sweat
no two are the same.

though our meetings short
before a new grade and belt
each one is special

Summerset call support line staff guide

This paper message is for all summerset staff to try and read. If you are unable to read, ask a member of management to provide a pictionary version.

This guide is for the talk-box 2.1 It comprises of 2x lead talk-boxes, and connected by 1 hemp rope (blessed in virgin tears 1.1). It is the latest in talk technology. Please note that although the phrase "technology" is a devil word, it is only used here to scare off evil imps from trying to eat this page.

This is written so that members of the support staff for talk-box inc. know how to answer questions from talk-box users. The questions must relate to talk-box products. If they refer to other issues (like "my 3 cows have eaten my badgers"), then please say the following line:

"well its all fronty like a wheelbarrow. Go and see Pete down at the crown and gate, he'll tell you all bout it."

Common questions:
1. Q.My talk-box has gone quiet.
A.Make sure the string hasn't gone slack between your talk-box and your talk-partner's.
A.If it is been raining, or you are in a river, then the string is wet. Pray to the pagan god of drying for 30 minutes, and try again.
A. Your talk-partner has died. They may have been a witch, or their sole might be trapped in the string. Push the string into the dead body, and set fire to it.

2. Q.The wife won't stop using the talk-box.
A.Put her in the lake outside of John's farm. If she floats, then she is a witch, and should be burnt along with the talk-box that she was using to communicate her devil voice, and anyone that she talked to.

3. Q.There is a voice coming through my talk-box. Is it the devil?
A.No. It is the gods carrying the voice of the other speaker through the blessed strings. However, if the voice is of a woman, then they are a witch, and should be burnt, because gods don't like women.

4. Q.How do I upgrade to get better range?
A.You need the stringbit-2000. It's about 30" long, and is just 7 half hape-crown shillings, (at current exchange rates that's 2 sheep).

5. Q.Does it use electricality?
A.No. It is approved to be used in Sommerset, so is free from electicals, plastic and reflective surfaces.

6. Q.How do I upgrade to get better quality signal?
A.You need to get a bigger talk-box tin can. The best is the Macro 5lb tomatoes tin which is sold for 6 and a half penny-shillings (or 2 and 1/3 cats).

7. Q.I keep hearing the devil whispering down my talk-box.
A.You have devils in your head. You will need to drain the skull of evil by drilling a 1/6" hole in your head using a narrow rock.

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?