The Facts

Mr T earned his name from becoming well-known for regularly drinking Earl Grey. From 2003-2007 he...

Mon, 08 Aug 2011 06:33:19 -0400

Mr T earned his name from becoming well-known for regularly drinking Earl Grey. From 2003-2007 he was a spokesman for Twinings. The first fool he ever pitied was his uncle, upon learning that he did not enjoy tea of any kind. In the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation the character of Captain Picard was often seen enjoying Earl Grey. This was due to the producers being huge Mr T fans, and wanting to include a nod to him in the series.

Ham comes from hamsters.

Sun, 03 Jul 2011 11:11:30 -0400

Ham comes from hamsters.

Fact Retraction

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0400

On November 28th 2005, I wrote this article.

I’m astonished. In all my years of being a tedious pundit, I’ve never, not once, seen CSI: Miami approach any level of reality. Until I read this article on BBC News.

Guest Fact

Thu, 09 Nov 2006 00:00:00 -0500

This fact comes to you courtesy of the BBC news program for children, Newsround.

“A squirrel weighs about the same as a packet of biscuits.”

Fact Focus: The Role Of Computers In Crimefighting

Thu, 28 Sep 2006 00:00:00 -0400

Modern computers have enabled Horatio Caine to automate many daily tasks in his job as head of Miami’s crime lab.

Man Plus

Mon, 19 Jun 2006 00:00:00 -0400

I have a secret for you, internet. Don’t tell anyone, right?

I’m in love with Michael Ironside.

There, I said it.

Don’t get me wrong. This isn’t the kind of love between a man and a woman, or even the kind of love between a man and a fine cuban cigar. No, this is the deep, throbbing respect every man should have for another man who is, quite simply, more manly than himself.

In the dictionary, beside the definition of “man”, there is a picture of Michael Ironside.

So who is this Michael Ironside? We’ll refer to him by his proper title of The Iron Man from here on in. Or, TIM for short.

TIM first came to everyone’s attention in the film “Scanners”. If you haven’t seen it, go ahead and watch it. It’s rubbish. I can thoroughly recommend it, though, because it has a young Michael Ironside. Too young, unfortunately. For, like a fine wine, TIM gets better with age.

He has played the bad guy in Total Recall, really getting into his stride as someone who plays total dickheads with relish. “See you at the paaaardy, Richtaaah.”

Today, however, I find myself in a tough situation. For many years I have been wishing that the UK Scifi channel wasn’t so awful. Its American cousin produces a bucketload of homegrown sci-fi. Much of it is crap, but we also have them to thank for the magnificent gravel-infested update of Battlestar Galactica, as well as perpetual Stargate. We also have them to thank for cancelling Farscape. I thought this was a hideous crime until I saw the season that immediately preceded the cancellation. Another win for the Scifi Channel.

I digress, as I often do because I am mentally ill. Anyway, in addition to the UK Scifi channel being to feeble to produce it’s own content, I have also been staggered that year on year people aren’t coming up with TV series’ that feature Michael Ironside. Sure, he had a guest spot on SG-1 as some angry guy on a planet. I don’t even remember his name. And much as I like Mitch Pileggi on Stargate Atlantis, there’s only one man you go and talk to if you’re looking for a bald, aged hardass, and that’s Michael Ironside.

Finally, I’m tired of science fiction press in general covering stuff that I don’t consider to be science fiction. This has spread into the mainstream, because the X Files muddied the waters and gave everyone a taste for the paranormal. And the science fiction press crawled all over the X Files. The end result is, TV people think they can make TV about paranormal crap and call it science fiction. Recently, this has been alleviated by the aforementioned Battlestar Galactica, and Stargate has been becoming more sci-fi than it used to be (not necessarily a good thing, it turns out). Aside from, that, though, we’re stuffed. Crap like “Supernatural” and “Hex” (just been cancelled) has been cropping up in recent years, nothing new, nothing to get excited about. We also have Buffy to thank for some of this, in case you hadn’t noticed.

The end result is: no TV series with Michael Ironside, no sci-fi TV series set in space, nothing worth watching on the UK Sci-fi channel (which, again, shows very little actual sci-fi).

Last week I heard about a spaceship-based show, funded in part by the UK Scifi channel, starring Michael Ironside.

I had to lie down for a bit.

I was getting excited until I read some of the outline today.

It’s called Ice Planet. It seems to be either very near future or present day, and it starts like this: Earth is told about a kickass growing alien spaceship hidden in the jungles of Sumatra, which needs to be used to fight off an alien attack. The good news is it succeeds. The bad news is, Earth gets turned into a desert anyway. Upon seeing a wormhole, our heroes decide to take their fancy new alien ship into it, in the hope it’ll take them back in time to resolve the problem. This is the equivalent of me seeing a rabbit hole and assuming it leads to the Taj Mahal last week.

On the other side of the wormhole, our brave heroes immediately crash the ship on some kind of ice planet. There, they learn of this new planet’s inhabitants, and about Earth’s role in whatever kind of war was going on. They also find an Aleph Tree. What the fuck this is, I don’t know.

The producers claim the series is “a cross between Star Wars, Star Trek and The X Files”. From that, we can probably expect terrible dialogue, people with bumpy heads and a serialised story that doesn’t make any sense. I guess they also forgot to mention “Lost”, because, you know, “mystery series with a bunch of stranded people” is basically the way to describe either of these series. I could also point out similarities with Battlestar Galactica, Space:1999 and Babylon 5, especially since these are based on actual observations of the premise, rather than a sales soundbite used to pitch to advertisers.

TIM himself please the Captain of Earth’s newly discovered alien ship, the Magellan. His name is General Jonas Trager, which is a pleasingly kickass name. I have a suspicion that nothing else about this series will kick any ass.

Except Michael.

24 Hour Party People

Wed, 05 Apr 2006 00:00:00 -0400

Jack Bauer is a loose cannon. How do we know this? The writers of 24 punch us in the face with this fact every hour of 24. Which, coincidentally, is about the same rate at which Jack punches fellow CTU agents in the face, under the justification of doing his job.

Every series, Jack comes back for One Last Mission. And, every series, Jack takes orders from an asshole. No matter how well CTU is run, there is always a reason for an asshole to be directly above Jack in the chain of command. And now the president is also an asshole. So, lots of people to give Jack orders.

As per Standard Operating Procedure, when Jack is given a direct order, he must punch Curtis in the face, steal his security card and stealth his way into CTU. Regardless of the order. He might be told to escort a high-ranking official to the coffee-shop. He might be told to stop spilling crumbs from his doughnut onto his keyboard.

It doesn’t matter. As soon as Jack hears an order, all the CTU agents near him shuffle away, because they know Jack is going to punch one of them and steal their security card. If there are no other CTU agents around, Jack will go to the house of the nearest one, break in, punch them, steal their security card andstealth his way into CTU.

Occasionally, he also has to get out of CTU, usually after punching a fellow agent. Luckily, Jack is also trained to punch CTU security guards, so getting out isn’t a problem.

It is unsurprising, therefore, that Jack spends a good 75% of each 24 hours being on the run from CTU. It’s a vicious circle: Jack gets some important evidence, and feels CTU won’t trust him that it’s true. So, he punches Curtis, steals his security card and stealths his way into CTU to get Chloe to help him. In return, CTU trust him less, making Jack all the more likely to punch a CTU agent next time.

Speaking of Chloe, she has five lines.

-”Send it to my screen.”
-”I’ll send it to your screen.”
-”I’ll need to open up a socket first.”
-”I’ve opened up a socket.”
-RANDOM BITCHY REMARK.

Take these lines, intersperse them with Mike Novick talking in low tones, Buchanen looking square-jawed, Jack getting arrested by CTU five hundred times, Jack punching a CTU agent 500 times, and a weapon of mass destruction, and you have 24 hours in the life of Jack Bauer.

Here’s a sneak peek a the next series of 24:
-Having lost everyone and everything close to him, losing his nipples in a firefight, losing his memory and swearing never to return to CTU, Jack returns to work at CTU as normal, like he does every year.
-Terrorists get their hands on a weapon of mass destruction. This year it’s a giant orbital space laser, and it’s in geostationary orbit above the President.
-Someone from Jack’s past will try to screw him over. Again.
-Jack will punch another twenty thousand CTU agents, smashing his record from season one, which stood at a mere 804.
-Jack will also destroy China, just because, you know, that whole plot with China isn’t really going anywhere. In fact, it’s almost at though it never happened, so… China may as well never have happened, right?

Season 6 of 24 promises to be a corker, in the sense that it will encompass all the elements of previous seasons, but in a slightly different order.

Crime Solving With The Professionals Part Two

Tue, 04 Apr 2006 00:00:00 -0400

I beat on CSI a lot, I know, mainly CSI: Miami. That’s because it’s easy.

Let me put it another way: if the CSI writers can get away with doing fuck all research, and indulge in lazy writing, then so can I. To further extend this comparison, if millions of people around the world enjoy CSI despite those failings, I too will enjoy the same success. This is watertight logic, and if you think you have found a discrepency, you haven’t. The only discrepency is in your face.

Here’s how to solve a crime in CSI land.
1) Go to the crime scene. Find three pieces of evidence: blood (some of it will be someone else’s), a huge chunk of dried skin, and a piece of soil.
2) Return to crime lab. Immediately put the soil through a battery of tests. It will have some unique properties that can only be found in one single area in all of the US.
3) Go to this area, find someone who works there. Accuse them of the crime immediately when you find that the flap of skin at the crime scene belongs to them.
4) The person will explain that they have a lot of loose skin, and some of it probably dropped off when you went round to the house to borrow a cup of sugar. This person will also point you in the direction of your next suspect.
5) Locate next suspect. Accuse suspect of the crime. Suspect will turn out to have a watertight alibi, and the blood will not be his. He will mention another person. This will be the person who committed the crime.
6) Find this person. Accuse them of the crime. This person will deny it, brimming with self-assurance. Explain that it was their blood at the crime scene. Come up with a ridiculous and convoluted explanation for how the suspect got their own blood at the crime scene.
7) The suspect will immediately confess, explaining why he comitted the crime.
Case closed. Sunglasses.

The procedure for CSI: Miami differs in a few details from the standard CSI practice. I will outline the Miami procedure below:
1) Do not go to the crime scene. Your boss Horatio Cain is already at the crime scene. He was there within 0.04 microseconds of the crime being committed. He will collect no evidence, but will correctly notice anything and everything relevant to the crime.
2) Horatio solves crime within 0.09 microseconds of arriving on the scene. Continue waiting at the lab for Horatio to return.
3) Upon Horatio’s return, do not ask him for the solution. He will want to drip feed you information so that work appears to be done. Humour him. This is a kind act by Horatio, since it keeps everyone in the department employed. If it ever became known that he is a one-man crime-busting machine, you would be unemployed.
4) Crime is considered solved when Horatio has decided that you have done enough work to keep up the illusion of being useful.

At some point between points 3 and 4 it is considered standard operating procedure for Horatio to do any of the following:
-Molest a member of CSI staff using only his voice
-Molest a member of CSI staff using conventional molestation techniques
-Shoot someone (not necessarily a member of CSI staff)
-Remove his sunglasses and then put them back on eighteen times a second
-Stand by while other CSI staff members accuse people of the crime, hoping to get one up on Horatio by solving it without him telling them
-Drive a car through an exploding building
-Fight a tidal wave using his fists

Now you know how to solve crimes like the pros!

Return of the Facts

Tue, 04 Apr 2006 00:00:00 -0400

That’s right, after an extended break, The Facts has returned. Let’s take a rundown of some facts that may have missed your attention.

1) The Headline
That’s right, I decided to use Mark Morrison’s “Return of the Mack” as a template for my headline for this article. I can think of no good reason for this, and several bad ones: it’s a terrible, terrible piece of music; now that I’ve thought of it, it’s stuck in my head on an endless cycle; oh god make it stop.

2) Apple Macs Now Have Intel CPUs
Like a tidal wave washing over a completely uninhabited and unknown island in the middle of the Pacific, Apple announced they were switching CPU vendors. Upon hearing this news, I immediately carried on as normal. Not true, I did pause to count the buttons on my mouse, because I enjoy the fact that I can control multiple fingers at once.

3) Nun Enters Arms Trade
“A group of Irish schoolgirls and a nun have set themselves up as an international arms company to highlight the absence of weapons brokerage laws in Ireland.”BBC News

I can’t help thinking that an easier way to highlight these laws would be to quite literally highlight them in a copy of the Irish Book of Laws and send it directly tothe President, with a note saying “these laws are somewhat insubstantial”. Perhaps I just lack motivation.

More disturbing right now is that fact that an Irish nun and a group of schoolgirls possess more destructive potential than I ever will. Even more disturbing than that is the thought that these schoolgirls could level my house with a few well-aimed RPGs from their stock cupboard.

4) Global Warming Is Bullshit
Source: Me. This Winter has been damn cold.

5) XBox 360 Released
I know this happened a while ago. I told you, I’m playing catchup. So, yeah. Woo. Let’s take a look at the must-have games for the XBox 360.

Well, now we’ve got that out the way, let’s look at the hardware itself. The new XBox 360 is indeed smaller then the original XBox, by a whole seven microns in width. The CPUs are dual core processors. Each core is made of neutronium, which goes some way towards explaining the weight of the system. Microsoft’s strategy of releasing the console early in order to get a lead on Sony’s Playstation 3 may well have backfired, since Microsoft decided the best time to release the 360 was when no one was screaming out for a hardware update.

This has been borne out by the fact that games on the XBox 360 look slightly better than games on the original XBox. I could buy a lot of pies for the price of an XBox 360. We’re talking serious pie volume.

Fact Focus: Hasta La Windows Vista

Tue, 20 Dec 2005 00:00:00 -0500

Windows is an operating system specifically designed by Microsoft to make your system crash.

Since Windows 2000 and XP, however, Microsoft changed their strategy and instead focussed on trying to make your computer run as slowly as possible.

With Windows Vista on the horizon, let’s take a look at what we can look forward to:

Enhanced DRM: For those that don’t know, Digital Rights Management is an exciting new technology aimed at making it as difficult as possible for you to enjoy your music when and where you want it.

More Multimedia: That’s right! Each version of Windows has been more MULTIMEDIA CAPABLE that the last. Where Windows 95 could only play video and sound files quite well, 98 could play them harder and more often. Windows ME was so good at being multimedia capable, that it projected video files directly into your mind. Windows XP could bend reality so that your videos actually happened in real life in front of you. The threesome scene from Wild Things is the most often played piece of video on XP machines, for this reason.

Now Windows Vista is so amazingly powerful at playing multimedia, that it will simply fire a laser out of the computer screen and kill you instantly, because there’s no point seeing any of Vista’s multimedia capabilities, since the puny human brain cannot comprehend how good the playback is.

UI improvements: The Windows XP UI was a slightly improved version of the standard Windows 95 UI. However, for Windows Vista, Microsoft want to transform the UI so that the screen is filled with useful information. Want to order pizza from a folder’s right-click menu? No problem. Want to call in an airstrike on your neighbour using MSN Messenger? Just put in his e-mail address. Want to make your computer emit the sound of a dog whistle to attract all the dogs in the neighbourhood? Just choose “Dog Whistle Alert” from the “Help” drop-down menu on Paint.

Scheduling Assistance: Always forgetting your appointments at the local brothel? Don’t worry! Windows Vista will keep track of your entire life for you! When you click “I Agree” to the End User Licence Agreement, you will be agreeing for Windows Vista to absorb your soul. It will then assess your needs and make appointments as required. If it thinks that your teeth aren’t straight, it will ring the detist for you, and request an appointment using a synthesized voice based on Michael Ironside’s gutteral tones, mixed in with 200% reverb to scare the bejesus out of the receptionist.

Incidentally, if you say “Microsoft” three times while looking into a mirror, Bill Gates will appear behind you and offer you a Beta version of Windows Vista, before clubbing you about the head with it and stealing all your silver.

Fact #16

Wed, 14 Dec 2005 00:00:00 -0500

It takes one hundred and seventy three badgers fired at 190mph at a rate of one every two seconds to sink a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier.

It takes four to disable a combat-ready soldier, and forty-three to penetrate the armour of a Challenger MkII tank. However, it takes just four to clog the barrell of the Challenger II.

One hundred and eighty thousand badgers were expended during World War II.

Fact #15

Sun, 11 Dec 2005 00:00:00 -0500

In Southend-on-Sea, hedgehogs have been granted the Right of Vengeance against motorists who run over members of their family.

Fact Focus: Crime Solving with the Professionals

Mon, 28 Nov 2005 00:00:00 -0500

It is very important to be able to seperate actual fact from ‘pretend’ fact.

To be more precise, it is very important that people learn the skill of seperating fact from CSI: Miami’s version of fact.

Watching an episode last week, I was interested to see that it began rather dramatically with a plane crash. In the time it took for the credits to roll, Horatio was on the scene. The first order of business for Horatio, as always, was to immediately start talking so that he could creep everyone out with his convicted-stalker voice.

With this task accomplished, he began to interview the pilot who was being stretchered onto an ambulance. Within ten seconds, Horatio had deduced that the man had been blinded by a laser, which had made him crash the plane. You may think I am exaggerating, but I’m not.

So, he heads back to the CSI lab and gets some of his staff to render up some CGI to show where on the ground the laser may have come from. Apparently, CSI labs tend to employ as many CGI artists as actual investigators.

They discover that one of the houses in the area is owned by a man who has been complaining about planes flying over his neighbourhood. So, off Horatio trots to the gentleman’s house.

Within 15 seconds of getting in the door, he sees a laser pointer on a table and accuses the man of pointing it at the pilot to blind him and make him crash the plane.

Now, I’m going to clarify this for you, because you may have, quite reasonably, assumed that the man burst into the cockpit and blinded the pilot with the pointer, or something. No, you see, this man was notin the cockpit. He wasn’t even on the plane.

You know when CSI does the zoomy flashy visuals to illustrate a crime? They showed us one here. The man standing on the ground, holding his pen-sized laser pointer, and shining it at a plane roughly a mile above him. The view then zooms along the beam up to the plane and right into the pilot’s eye.

Several thoughts present themselves, but I won’t go through them all, because none of them matter in light of the following:

If someone was just standing in a field a mile away, I couldn’t get him in the eye with a laser pointer. That’s without him being in a moving aircraft, behind tinted glass that’s designed to block out sunlight. I couldn’t even aim a laser pointer into someone’s eye from across the road.

There’s nothing wrong with a bit of artistic license, but come on! If it was at all possible to bring down aircraft with just hand-aimed laser pointers, terrorists would be buying them up by the truckload. Funnily enough, though, those crazy terrorists seem to prefer something called SURFACE TO AIR MISSILES. Now, I’m assuming there’s a pretty large price differential between one laser pointer and one SAM launcher plus ammunition. Even when you factor in spare batteries for the laser pointer. Heck, you could factor in ten years worth of batteries for the laser pointer, and still only scratch the surface of the cost of the aforementioned military hardware. With that in mind, I’m quite sure that those cost-conscious terrorists know that they’re spending their money on proven technology.

A recurring pattern in CSI: Miami is that of Horatio solving all crimes ever. His team are merely there to do the donkey work, while he swans between labs nodding and creeping the staff out with his voice. They look all puzzled by their lab results until Horatio points out the solution effortlessly. There are two possible explanations.

1) Horatio has simply trained himself to be amazing at solving everything, so that he doesn’t have to work late and can spend his evenings using his voice for it’s main purpose: creeping people out in dark alleyways and stalking beautiful women.

2) Horatio is an embittered ex-cop who merely fantasises that he’s far superior to everyone and fixes all problems. CSI: Miami is simply a documentary of these musings. THIS IS THE ONLY WAY THAT A PLANE BEING BROUGHT DOWN BY A LASER POINTER CAN BE EXPLAINED.

Also, Horatio is ginger, much to my amusement.

Fact Focus: Mobile Phones

Wed, 09 Nov 2005 00:00:00 -0500

Invented in 1975, the world’s first mobile phone was a petrol-driven monstrosity that could convey a family of six a distance of approximately seven miles. It had eight wheels and was regularly used by the police during chases. In order to make mobile calls, it had to be parked nearby to a house with a phone. At this point, it was the duty of the tallest person present to knock on the door of the house and ask to use their phone.

Later versions of this phone ran on goodwill and happy thoughts. It could not function in Sheffield.

More functional versions of the mobile phone appeared in the late seventies. The best of these was the MessageMaster, which weighed over 400Kg. In order to offset the disappointing weight-to-functionality ratio, the phone was given extra functions; it could be deployed into the form of an Italian restaurant. This procedure required six men and took four hours, and was seen as something of an extravagance.

Another extra function of the phone was that it could be used as a raft. In raft mode, the phone was guaranteed to stay afloat for forty seconds.

By 1984, phones had become true handsets. The most popular of these was the Motorola TALKR. It had the marked disadvantage of requiring a forty-foot transmission mast to be plugged into it in order to transmit further than three metres.

Since then, phones got smaller and smaller until, in 1999, the Nokia 647510i, was roundly criticised for being the size of four atoms.

Today, phones fulfil a variety of functions, such as the Motorola ROKR, which can store more music than any one person can listen to in their entire lifetime.

Fact Focus: Guy Fawkes

Wed, 09 Nov 2005 00:00:00 -0500

Four nights ago, most of England was celebrating Guy Fawkes’ Night, more commonly known as Bonfire Night.

Many of you Johnny Foreigner types are unawares as to what this festival is all about. Luckily, like a badass envoy from the Streets of Knowledge, I’m here to educate you.

Guy Fawkes was a man constructed out of pure evil. Created on a construction gantry on a hidden island in the Pacific Ocean, he flew to London when he was completed, in 1974, using the rocket boosters in his feet.

At this point, it became apparant that he was only four inches tall. This meant he was classified as having to pay “tiny tax”, which enraged him greatly. So, he decided to destroy the Houses of Parliament.

Living soley on a diet of petrol and Rich Tea Biscuits, he was able to increase his height to over 100 metres. As a side effect, he also gained the ability to fire cutting beams from his eyes.

On November 5th 2004, Guy Fawkes stormed the Houses of Parliament. The Law Lords were called upon to quell the situation. Using a combination of beards and cannon fire, they were able to disable him. Then one of the Law Lords, RoboLord leapt onto Guy Fawke’s back and tore out his evil computerised brain.

History 101: Part Three

Mon, 31 Oct 2005 00:00:00 -0500

June 1996: The Water Vole War
Two opposing camps of water vole finally go to war after many years of political tension. The differences between the two factions go right down to the core philosophies that water voles live their lives by. This war spilled over into the human arena when a Tactical Vole Strike went wrong, irradiating Sheffield. The authorities had no choice but to evacuate the city, and today it sits as a dilapidated monument to the Water Vole War. Some people have moved back there since then, and built paltry lives for themselves, but to this day, Sheffield remains a hotbed of radioactivity and despair.

Jubruary 1997: The Empire State Cannon is constructed
The Empire State Cannon is built to combat the increasing threat of terrorism. Pointing directly upwards, capable of firing a focussed particle beam thirty metres in diameter, and completely immobile, the Cannon was the most powerful weapon ever constructed. However, a study conducted after completion of the Cannon found that terrorists were not likely to be found immediately above it. The study consisted of a survey of 400 terrorists, and not one of them said that they would be conducting any terrorist activities while hovering directly above the Empire State Cannon. With this in mind, the Cannon was renamed The Empire State Building, and everyone just pretended that was what it was built to be in the first place. The President of the US still has a button on his desk for firing the Cannon, should he hear of any terrorist activities taking place just above Empire State Building.

Augusto 1998: First Man in Space
Ireland sends the first human being into space, probably aboard some kind of bright green space ship. The pilot, Michael O’Hara Flaherty McNulty, completed fourteen orbits, during which time he beamed forty nine metric tonnes of lucky charms onto all nations of the world, except France.

Marsh 1999: Atlantic Ocean Replaced
Scientists discover that someone has done a pee into the Atlantic. In a huge multinational operation, the water is replaced with fresh water from the moon, brought back by subsequent missions to space from Ireland. The old water was dumped in your backyard. Sorry.

January 2000: Millennium Prank
As part of a student prank, everyone woke up on January 1st of the 21st Century to find they were in their neighbour’s house. A group of students had moved everyone during the night.

Maytember 2001: Nuclear Sidearm Invented
To further combat terrorism, scientists invent the Nuclear .45 Magnum. To this day, it’s the most powerful handgun in the world.

Joon 2002: Mariachi Invasion
Squads of Mariachi bands invade Poland. World War III was believed to be inevitable. At the eleventh hour, the natural enemy of Mariachi music arrived in Poland to rid the country of the threat. That enemy wore white, and was sheltered by a series of powerful afros. That’s right, Disco alone prevented World War III. The Disco Ball of Justice was deployed by the Ninth Disco Battalian, based in Sussex. The Eleventh Battalion concentrated on converting all of Poland into a dancefloor, giving the other Disco Soldiers +15 to “Moves”.

Septumber 2003: Great Wall of China Constructed
One of the most well known, and largest monuments in the world, the Great Wall of China is so large it can be seen from a distance of 8 Light Years. It was built primarily to prevent dogs crapping on China’s lawn.

I hope you learned a lot from my History 101. Go forth and spew this knowledge into the faces of the people you meet.

History 101: Part Two

Thu, 20 Oct 2005 00:00:00 -0400

March 1986: France Invented By Accident
France, and therefore the French, were accidentally invented by a team of scientists who were trying to invent the world’s first re-usable sandwich. The scientists were held before an international tribunal and stripped of their POWER OF SCIENCE by way of punishment. They were also banned from accidentally inventing countries for five years.

July 1987: First and Second World Wars
Occurring within two weeks of each other, the two World Wars were instigated by Germany. In the first instance, Kaiser Wilhelm II created a huge mechanical robot which he personally controlled in order to attack Serbia. Russia and Britain responded with huge walking monstrosities of their own. France, which had conveniently been invented a year earlier, created a giant tower that was used to fire waffles and pancakes at Germany. The so-called “Waffle Tower” has had it’s name mispronounced more and more over the years, and now is known as the “Eiffel Tower”.

Defeated by a salvo of waffles that struck the giant metal testicles of Kaiser Wilhelm’s creation, Germany shrunk back into obscurity for a few days. As recorded with clinical historical accuracy by the computer game Wolfenstein 3D, Germany began breeding zombie soldiers to invade other countries. They were finally defeated in a climactic battle between a lone soldier carrying three guns and a power-suited Hitler. Despite being horrifically wounded several times, the lone soldier was able to completely heal himself by consuming whole chickens during battle.

April 1990: Cuban Missile Crisis
Disaster is narrowly averted when nuclear missiles are accidentally labelled as cuban cigars and shipped out to stores around the world. Luckily, the missiles were recalled before too much damage is done. However, several minor burns were caused when a few unlucky smokers tried to light their “cigars”, causing the missiles to trigger painful nuclear explosions.

May 1992: Bruce Forsythe is Built
Recognising the lack of well-chinned light entertainers, Bruce Forsythe was constructed by the Jet Propulsion Labs in California. Unfortunately, despite being planned as the most advanced light entertainer yet seen, cutbacks had to be made. Scientists soon discovered that the rotary cannon they had mounted instead of a left arm was not strictly street-legal. The also discovered that the world was not yet ready for a light entertainer with a crotch-mounted torch, for night-time performances.

August 1994: The LAW LORDS are commissioned
In an attempt to put a stop to crime, a team of Law Lords were selected. These six, stocky men are stored in stand-up stasis tubes, their big grey beards keeping them alive. When a crime is committed, they step out and don their robes of Law. Each Law Lord has his own method of dispensing justice, in much the same way that their contemporaries, the deplorable Spice Girls, had their own methods of being annoying. Of course, it’s well documented that the Spice Girls were destroyed in 1995 by an asteroid that landed on their store of “Girl Power”, causing an explosion that ripped their tour bus apart. The Law Lords, however, can withstand a fifty megaton nuclear blast. For this reason, and others, they are alive today to dispense justice.

November 1995: The Anti-personnel Ham Sandwich is Invented
Despite the Reuseable Sandwich Project having been deemed a failure, the research spawned the creation of the Anti-Personnel Sandwich.

Soon, together, we will hold hands like lovers and journey through the final part of History 101. For now, keep safe, my young croutons.

History 101 Mailbag

Wed, 12 Oct 2005 00:00:00 -0400

A number of impudent souls have questioned my History 101 lecture. I am more than happy to open a six-pack of FACT on anyone who does so. Indeed, I have a FACT FUNNEL for this precise circumstance.

Joe Richter from Hemel Hempstead, near Lebanon, has this to say:

“When did World War II take place?”

This is yet to come, along with it’s preceding World War, in the next part of History 101. I’m a little confused as to why you focussed on the absence of the second World War. You know I didn’t include the first, yet, either, don’t you?

“How old is your Dad?”

A classic Scandinavian Gambit, Joe Richter asks this question in the feeble hope that my father’s age would prove that homo sapiens existed before 1971. Unfortunately, Mr Richter requires some FACTING UP. Humans began to evolve from dinosaurs in 1901, with the first homo sapiens appearing in 1971. So, simple deduction tells us that my father is half man, half dinosaur.

To pre-empt another question:

“What about notable scientific advances, such as the discovery of penicillen, vaccines, the creation of the automobile and the first manned trip into outer space?”

All these and other scientific events occurred on Wednesday, August 12th, 1981, between the hours of 7pm and 8pm. I simply can’t include every single event in history, because it would take far too long. Obviously.

Now, please gird your minds to recieve the next, most powerful instalment, of History 101.

Fact Fest: History 101

Mon, 10 Oct 2005 00:00:00 -0400

The human race has been on the planet for some time now. Indeed, fossilised remains have enabled us to nail down an approximate date that the first homo sapiens began to appear: August 1971.

Since then, the human race has flourished. Let’s take a look at some notable points in our history.

January 1972: Science is invented
A dedicated team of scientists unveiled their first discovery: a field in which to work, known as “The Field of Science”. When it was first discovered, the field contained a flock of sheep. They were soon ejected and the field was filled with science.

May 1972: The Industrial Revolution
In a state-of-the-species speech, the King of Humans decreed that we should immediately stop being hippies and embrace industry.

March 1973: Disco is invented
Sir Nigel Buntingworth, foremost scientist of the age, discovered Discomatter. Within weeks, he was colliding these particles in his basement, and found that they gave off raw disco. To this day, Discos are powered by Discocyclotrons that collide Discomatter in large quantities.

November 1975: The Microchip Revolution
The age of digital was ushered in with the invention of the microchip. This paved the way for other inventions, such as the automatic pancake and the self-regulating afro, vital for late-seventies disco triumphs.

June 1976: The American Civil War begins and ends.
Lasting only four seconds, President O’Murnahan defeated Evil President Werner with a vicious Chinese Burn.

Octember 1980: France invades the United Kingdom.
The attack is repelled when the Queen destroys the southern coastline with a series of nuclear mines that she planted herself only days earlier. The resulting series of craters is referred to as the English Channel.

Fubruary 1984: Construction on the moon is completed.
After launching, the construction company, Mooncorp, admits it used cheese instead of concrete.

Nophumber 1985: Terrorists inflate the Earth to twice it’s normal size with a bike pump.
To this day, scientists have not been able to find a safe way to deflate the planet. Instead, two months after this incident, scientists simply inflated all human beings up to an appropriate size, so they were again in proportion with the rest of the world. This also had the lucky side effect of humans no longer being slaves to mice.

I hope you enjoyed this brief history of our… history.

Fact #13: Currencies of the World

Thu, 29 Sep 2005 00:00:00 -0400

In Turkmenistan, it is standard practice to pay for goods and services by using ghosts as currency.