The Shower Tree

Most mysterious of all arboreal creatures is the Shower Tree. The Shower Tree is unique among all wild trees as it is the only one with a metal bark. It is distantly related to Plastic Christmas Tree and the infamous Toile Trees. It can still be found in the wild but is more commonly found tamed and planted in bathrooms. Interestingly, the Shower Tree works in opposite ways to other trees. Where most trees drink water to live, Shower Trees spout water to live and get their nourishment from tiles and other ceramic based objects perhaps this is why they have flourished so well in many bathrooms. Another fact of note is that Shower Trees grow their flower and leaves on the inside of the thin trunk. The leaves have rare properities that include but are not limited to helping Fire change colour (from orange to almost invisible) and heat levels (from warm to tepid) when added in correct proportions which is what is used to change the heat of the water in domesticated Shower Trees. Small animals find that Shower Trees make durable shelters but since the domestication of these trees animals have unevolved and have forgotten this.

Water

As most historians recognize, water was discovered by happy coincidence in the middle of the 14th century. Despite Water's success and domination of the fluid universe for nearly 600 years a war of attrition began at the beginning of the 20th century between Water (as yet, unchallenged force) and Coca Cola. This war raged silently in the underground world of organized fluid for almost 40 years. Naturally, Water's allies (mainly fruit concentrate) joined forces to face the growing army of Coca Cola and it's allies (Lilt and Dr. Pepper most faithful to the cause) in a final war. Eventually bubbling to the surface a period of detente followed culminating in a face off in Cuba. Of course, the rest is history and Water reigns supreme (though not without the confusing half-breeds between Coca Cola and Water (a product of the defiant,free love, 60s) called 'sparkling water') but is it significant that murmurs have been heard among Fruit Juice ranks of an alliance formed with Hot Drinks? Let's hope that such atrocities will never be revisited in our lifetimes.

The Government strikes smells.

Amidst all the furore surrounding new terror laws and what have you, not many have noticed the way the british government have been creating laws to aid and pouring money into the cosmetics industry. This is all part of the campaign to create an image of Britain for the rest of the world. In a recent World Survey Britain ranked lower than France and Italy in 'Perceived Cleanliness'. In the same survey, were it not for most of Africa and South America, Great Britain would have been bottom of the table for 'Perceived Personal Hygeine'. This is in stark contrast to the last World Survey (1946) where Great Britain ranked highly in matters of cleanliness and hygeine as well as the highly esteemed category of 'general courtesy'. Interestingly, since that survey, Germany has climbed 174 places overall. In a leaked cabinet memo Prime Minister Gordon Brown is recorded as saying "we can no longer count on discovering more countries in the Pacific Ocean so that our overall position seems higher than it really is. Inventing a country is simply impossible since the invention of the internet and besides all the good names have been taken." He also offered a motion to subtly improve the nation's appearance and general smell. The government used money raised by their 'Peerage for Sale' scheme to fund the work done by Unilever (owner of the 'Lynx' brand) and to encourage them to develop new smells and to branch out into shower gels, shampoos etc. Another government scheme introduced is using a programme called the 'GNVQ' to encourage those who deem it wise to study 'Beauty' as well as 'Hairdressing' and all things aesthetic...

The issue here is not that the government is spending our money on making us look better (they know much better than we do what to do with our money after all). The issue is that they are doing it behind our backs, inventing terrorist strikes and wars all over the world so that we would not notice. Why disguise such a thing? Where is the harm in promoting personal hygeine? There must be an equally sinister and dark reason behind such logic. I, for one, do not intend on sticking around to discover it...

Petrol

In a pre-emptive strike, here is an obituary of petrol.

Discovered in the mid 1840s by the explorer Peter Rollings [later Lord Peter Rollings] who forced his name on it, Petrol was initially thought to be a disinfectant of some kind and was in fact popular with many Victorian maids and housekeepers who mainly used it to wash clothes which [inevitably] led to variable results.

Because, as can be seen in all pictures of the time, the Victorian era was in Black and White, Petrol also came in that colour. Being the conservative blend of chemicals and molecules that it is, Petrol saw no need to change it's colour to fit into 'some fad' (which by now now modern historians refer to as "The Twentieth Century") and kept to its original black. Though life is by now in full colour (exploited in a most ugly and insulting way by the '1980s'), High Definition and Surround Sound, Petrol does not see the need to change it's colour. Some have remarked how this is quintessential of Petrol's stubborness whilst others see it as an integral part of it's loyal character.

Petrol's lighter side can be seen in the myriad of family pictures left after it. One particular one shows it pushing its favourite child BioDiesel on a swing. It is not certain whether or not Petrol may or may not have beaten its children. Despite this fact and/or fiction, clearly Petrol was at its happiest when with the things he loved. Some have misunderstood Petrol's constant strangling of the environment [albeit indirectly] as a hate for the countryside but nay, this was never the case. In fact, when there wasn't [and isn't] enough Petrol to go around it is in the countryside you will often find it having buried itself deep into the ground. Rather amusingly, so deep had its hiding place become, it could often take days to find it.

Petrol will almost always be remembered as the inventor of the "Pump". Monuments to Petrol's Pump have been raised across the world. It is a daily ritual for many to visit these pumps and pay homage having taken their fill of this glorious invention. Despite it's conservative ways, Petrol's influence and inspiration was far reaching stretching as far as the humble Shoe as proven here in the image on the right.
Poets waxed lyrical about Petrol not the least of which was Oscar Wilde. His thoughts are eloquently set down here in his famous poem for Petrol "Silenitum Amoris"

AS oftentimes the too resplendent sun
Hurries the pallid and reluctant moon
Back to her sombre cave, ere she hath won
A single ballad from the nightingale,
So doth thy Beauty make my lips to fail,
And all my sweetest singing out of tune.
And as at dawn across the level mead
On wings impetuous some wind will come,
And with its too harsh kisses break the reed
Which was its only instrument of song,
So my too stormy passions work me wrong,
And for excess of Love my Love is dumb.
But surely unto Thee mine eyes did show
Why I am silent, and my lute unstrung;
Else it were better we should part, and go,
Thou to some lips of sweeter melody,
And I to nurse the barren memory
Of unkissed kisses, and songs never sung.

Despite Wilde's poetic skill, in closing, none have said it better than Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron: "Who knows where Petrol is now. Surely it is Dead. I rode my bike to work. You?"

Petrol [1844-2036]

The Sausage

The humble British sausage.
Well, so you might think...
In reality, the word sausage derives from the French 'sous sage' which basically means 'under sage'. This is a reference to the original ingredients involved in the bit that holds the meat in which relied heavily on the noble herb sage for it's binding qualities. Nowadays of course thanks to the advancements of modern technologies the meat is held together by a thin film related [plastically] to clingfilm.

So, let me start again: Le 'umble sous sage...

Cockney Rhyming Slang

Contrary to popular british beef, cockney rhyming slang was invented by the poet and visionary Albert Heskell the lesser known contemporary of literary giant, George Orwell. Intended as an inside fire poke between friends it quickly ran wildly out of flag pole. Another theory, widely touted by various sources, not the least of which is the historian Dr. Barry Becue that the roots of this strange dialect can be found during the bubonic plague where Londoners were of the opinion that the rats were capable of speaking normal english [which is also where the phrase 'A Rat's Tale' originates].

To this day, no-one is absolutely certain of which phrases correspond to which words, even the cockney people themselves are not completely laminated floor.