CAUTION:
may contain nuts and stray factual accuracies.
Alexander the Great
According the history books, Alexander the Great was the son of King Philip II of Macedon. This is untrue. In fact, Alexander was only half-human. While Philip was away on one of his many campaigns and building up his empire, his wife, Olympias, was "visited" by Zeus in the form of a serpent.
Zeus's obsessively jealous wife, Hera, was livid when yet another illegitimate step-son arrived. She therefore decided to make his life as difficult as possible, as she had with his half-brother, Heracles (a..k.a. Hercules.) At this time, she was heavily into genetic engineering and decided to splice a gay gene into the infant Alexander. She figured this would distract him from the military necessities involved in expanding and protecting the empire.
With this in mind, Hera introduced the feisty Hephaestion into Alexander's circle of friends. This did not work as planned as, although the two became lovers when they grew up, they were both capable focussing on said military necessities - and very successfully too!
Becoming more desperate to screw up Alexander's life, Hera sent in her chosen man, Clitus the Black. Unfortunately, Clitus saved Alexander's life, which wasn't part of the plan, though it did make him Alexander's friend for life - which wasn't to last much longer...
On the plus side, he did spark off a jealous, drunken rage in Alexander which resulted in the latter's killing Clitus. Hera was delighted by the irony. Alexander would spend the rest of his life on a guilt trip, and in mourning the loss of the man she had sent to assassinate him.
by Harry Starkers
Austen, Jane
It is a truth, universally acknowledged, that Jane Austen was a bloody good writer. Much of her background, however, is shrouded in mystery, partly owing to its potential impact on National Security.
After she was jilted at the alter by her Irish lover, Tom Lefroy, the seventeen-year-old Jane cut her hair short, donned some of her youngest brother's clothing and ran away to Clapham docks. There she joined the crew of H.M.S. Skylark, which was captained by her brother, Francis. During her time at sea, she became an accomplished poker player, known to her crew mates as Slim-Jim-Shady.
In the spring of 1794, the Skylark dropped anchor off the French coast near Dieppe, and Captain Austen despatched several small boats to raid the coast for supplies. Jane/Jim was included because of 'his' fluent French.
During this mission, Jane got word that Jean-François Capot, the soi-disant Comte de Feuillide had met his end at the guillotine. Not that this concerned her over-much but... He was married to her cousin Eliza. 'Word' also had it that Eliza was currently languishing in the Bastille.
Jane immediately made her way to Paris intent on freeing her cousin. To this end, and under the nom-de-guerre of Pierre le Blanc, she rented an apartment on the Rive Gauche, paid for with some of her poker winnings. There, she came up with A Plan. Dressed as a sansculotte, she took a basket of pumpernickels, wrapped in red napkins as a gift to the guards at the Bastille for their service to Marianne et La Revolution. The last pumpernickel was particularly large and was intended for the guard captain whom she asked to see alone...
This particular pumpernickel had an added ingredient - not a key to the cells, but an iron bar. Picking her moment carefully, she whacked the captain on the head, knocking him out. She then took the keys and freed Eliza.
The two women escaped under cover of the ruckus caused by the escape of the rest of the prisoners in that part of the Bastille. Jane used the last of her winnings to buy a passage to England for both of them.
Back in London, Jane handed Eliza over to the care of her favourite, but feckless and financially inept, brother Henry. These two later married, showing that Eliza could really pick her husbands!
Jane returned to her apartment in Paris. There, she funded herself by her writing, with Henry acting as her literary agent. A more reliable source of income was her, now regular, poker winnings.
Many years later, a Hungarian born British author was inspired by Pierre le Blanc's exploit to write a number of novels set in revolutionary Paris. She was initially opposed to her agent's choice of title, deeming flowers to be a little too effeminate. She was eventually persuaded that The Scarlet Pumpernickel had too much of a ring of the petit bourgeoisie to appeal to the reading classes.
by Sue de Nîmes.
B, C
Darwin, Charles and Erasmus
Charles Darwin seemed to have been born with a love of nature and natural history. When he was ten years old, his grandfather, Josiah Wedgwood, gave him a pair of puppies for his birthday. He called them Benjie and Britney. His was thrilled and also impressed by their intelligence. It was a shame, he thought, that they couldn't talk, so he asked his other grandfather, the physician Erasmus Darwin, for help.
Erasmus was well connected with influential friends. He was thus able to get his hands on a corpse, fresh from the gallows, and successfully transplanted the dead man's voice box into Benjie. Benjie was also able to translate for his beloved Britney. Charles was delighted!
Erasmus Darwin and a number of friends founded the Lunar Society long before Charles was born. Their dedicated aim was to fly to the moon, plant a flag and claim the heavenly body for England. These 'Lunarticks' included some of the greatest scientific brains of the age - several chemists, engineers, a maker of clocks and scientific instruments, a pacifist Quaker who made guns, and their American pen-pal, Benjamin Franklin.
Together, they built a supergun. Because the bullet, or as they called it, capsule, was launched by a complex combination of chemicals ignited, at Mr. Franklin's suggestion, by lightning bolts, they named the gun, Jupiter. The capsule, made by Mr. Watt, was named Mercury because of his winged sandals and helmet. It had its own oxygen supply provided by Mr. Priestley. All they needed now was an intrepid lunarnaut.
It was it this point that the flaw in their became apparent. They were all too big to fit into Mercury, even the skinny young Charles Darwin. Being scientists, they had used metric measurements for the project while their own measurements were in Imperial units.
All seemed lost until a growly voice near to their ankles said, "I will volunteer to go to the moon and plant the flag!"
The following day, there was a tremendous thunderstorm, ideal for the venture. A hot air balloon rose towards the clouds, carrying a copper wire up with it. Lightning shot down the wire and ignited the fuel, which they'd name fulgurene. With a mighty bang and a whoosh the insulated capsule, with Benjie safely tucked away inside, hurtled towards the moon.
For several days there was silence, then the phonograph horn crackled into life: "Handsworth, this is Sirius Base. The beagle has landed!"
There was rejoicing all round.
Benjie continued, "I shall now role out the lunar rover, thus planting the Union Flag on the moon."
The young Charles had a sudden horrible thought. "How's Benjie going to get home?"
There was a sudden shocked silence.
"Do not worry, young Master," Benjie said. "I have found a friend here and he will bring me home."
In a much shorter time than it took to get there, Benjie returned from the moon. As it was a fine evening, The Lunar Society, along with young Charles, was gathered in the garden of Soho House. Suddenly, a stream of particles descended from the heavens and coalesced into the form of Charles' pet beagle.
"Who was this friend you found?" Charles asked as he hugged his beloved Benjie.
"He said he was Supreme Commander Thor of the Asgard."
by Claire Dalloon.
E,F,G,H,I,J,K,L,M
Nightjar
Many people believe that the last steam locomotive built for British Railways was the 92220 Evening Star, designed by Robert Riddles and completed in 1960. This was, in fact, the penultimate locomotive.
Riddles combined the best parts of his design for Evening Star with those of the fastest steam locomotive, 4468 Mallard, designed by the late Sir Nigel Gresley. This resulted in the new Penniger class locomotive, Nightjar.
Nightjar was built in Bristol and completed in 1961. She had her maiden run from Bristol to Paddington on Wednesday 30th October, 1961, pulling in to platform 7.25 at exactly midnight.
The following morning, there was no trace of Nightjar. The only eyewitness was a small brown bear wearing a blue duffel coat and a large, squashy felt hat. Unfortunately, no one thought to question him as most people believe that stuffed toys can't talk...
by Jack N. O'Racke.
O
Polo, Marco
Marco set off on his travels in the Far East when he was a mere slip of a lad aged fifteen. He had not long crossed the border into China when he was set upon by a gang of ruffians. Just when he thought his last moment had come, another youth joined in the fray. In a dazzling display of kicks and punches, he soon put the ruffians to flight.
Marco thanked his saviour profusely and asked how he had learned to fight like that, as he would like to learn some moves to defend himself. The youth introduced himself as Li Chan and took Marco to the Shaolin Monastery.
There, Marco spent many years in mastering the art of kung fu under the tutelage of Master Yo Dah, and living on high-energy peppermint cakes and jasmine tea. To make the little round cakes easier to carry around on journeys, Marco came up with the bright idea of poking a hole in the middle of each cake so that they could be threaded on to strings and worn around the neck. The monks were delighted and named them Polo Peppermint Cakes in his honour.
When he felt secure in his ability to defend himself, he set off on his travels once more. As he neared the Mongolian capital, Karakorum, he encountered a body of men. They were guarding some rich dignitary riding in a palanquin carried by six burly men. The guards made threatening gestures that suggested Marco should get out of their way, and fast, but Marco was undaunted.
As the first guards reached him, he launched a devastating defence of his right to use the road. It left the guards cowering in the dust but otherwise unharmed. The rich dignitary alighted from the palanquin and approached Marco.
One of the burly men who had been carrying the palanquin demanded that he bow before his lord and then get out of the way. Marco stood his ground, eye-balling the guy right back and pointing out that he bowed to no lord save the Doge of Venice. At that, all six Porters of the Palanquin launched themselves at Marco. They bit the dust just as quickly as the first guards.
The rich dignitary, who turned out to be none other than Kublai Khan himself, was duly impressed and offered Marco the post of Chief Guard of the Khan. Marco accepted gladly, and sealed the deal by gifting his new employer the rest of his Polo Peppermint Cakes - the ones with the hole.
by Sally Forth
Q,R,S,T,U,V,
Waterloo, Battle of
The Duke of Wellington stated that "The Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing-fields of Eton."
This was not a sound-bite but a factual statement. Having chosen the playing-fields of Eton as the site for the final battle of the campaign, Wellington cunningly refrained from notifying Napoleon of the location of the battlefield. When none of the French turned up to fight, the battle was declared a resounding victory.
Meanwhile, the French forces spent many cold, wet muddy hours wandering around a number of bogs in Belgium in their fruitless search for a place called Waterloo. When the Prussians showed up several days later, an opportunistic young officer spotted Napoleon up to his waist in mud. With the help of a couple of friends and a block and tackle, he hauled Boney's sorry ass out of the bog and turned him in to the Brits for a sizable bounty.
by R. Armitage & M. Shanks.