Survival of the Fattest

Question:

Two men (or women, but I feel safer saying it's men because I'm not stupid) are lost in the wilderness. There is plenty of water but no food.

Both are six feet tall, same build, but one is 12 stone and the other is 30 stone.

How much longer would the fat man take to starve to death?

That's assuming he doesn't eat the thin man.

I know the thin man could kill the fat man in his sleep by smothering him with branches from a tree and stuffing clumps of earth in his mouth and live for much longer by eating the fat man and then drying out strips of his flesh and hanging them off his belt for later, like Bear Grylls no doubt would. But let's assume they don't eat each other. Would the thin man starve much sooner than the fat man?

Subsidiary question, if they didn't eat each other, walking out of the wilderness, would the thin man get further because he had less weight to carry and could keep going longer, or would the fat man get further because he had all that lard to feed off to keep him going?

I think the fat man would, for sure. And that's why, if I was in that situation as the thin man, I would definitely kill the fat man and eat him. If I could get a fire going. Barbecue mainly.

Or just eat him raw, the fat bastard.

Basically, thin man, fat man, who survives?

Unless they stumbled across a woman with enormous tits, then maybe they would both survive.

There are always variables.

I need a rethink of this question. It's difficult being a scientist like me.

Anyway, I need more drink. Laters...

Shit Christmas (My words set to music and sung by Chaz Crane to the tune of Blue Christmas)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-v32wVp_PY

Lungs Suck

Lungs suck. And they blow. And sometimes, if you don’t remain vigilant, they fill up with water and kill you when you least expect it. Apple bobbing has claimed more unwary victims than people realise. Particularly when the class bully holds your head under while the teacher is outside having a crafty smoke.

 

Lungs don’t even taste good, not unless some sneaky manufacturer hides them inside their pasties, sausages or burgers, disguising their noisome flavour with minced chicken neck and savoury cow’s anus. That’s another Jamie Oliver recipe I won’t be trying again any time soon. The sprinkling of star anise and pinch of saffron didn’t make a bit of difference. As for the squirt of squid ink, bloody waste of time and money that was.

 

Did you know one human lung spread out flat would cover an entire tennis court? I dare say it would make it a bit slippy, though. Don’t see Wimbledon changing over from grass to lung courts in the near future. Not ‘traditional’ enough for those snobs. I mean, they’ve never budged an inch over the all white kit thing, not even for the girl players when they’ve got the painters in.

 

“How much! For six effin’ strawberries and a teaspoon of cream? I don't know about Wombles of Wimbledon, highway robbers is what you are."

Demon Drink Blues

This was the first of my poems (or lyrics as Chaz calls them) that my friend Charles Crane set to music and performed. Video by another blogging chum, Dioclese.

 

 

http://chascmusic.wordpress.com/2012/09/26/demon-drink-blues/?relatedposts_hit=1&relatedposts_origin=556&relatedposts_position=0

Flight of Terror

I once flew to Rumania (or Romania, take your pick) on board a plane from their national airline. This was in the days before they kicked their then dictator, Nicoleae Ceaucescu, to death and before they joined the new nazi dictatorship of the european union. You would have thought they’d have know better, but no. Commie airlines, I think they were called.

 

Well, the hostesses all looked like the werewolf from Carry on Screaming, but hairier – I kid you not. Either that or they were cross-dressing all in wrestlers with two and a half pounds of foundation, rouge and lipstick plastered over their angular faces to disguise their five o’clock shadow. The in flight meal was clearly polystyrene painted to look like food and they grudgingly flung it at us anyway as though we were stealing it from the mouths of their starving children.

 

There was no sign of any other in flight service, apart from repeated attempts to flog us cartons of Marlborough cigarettes and bottles of perfume. Having, in hungry desperation, eaten the bread roll that accompanied the pretend food, which was so dry it almost choked me, I had little choice but to drink the tasteless gnat’s piss that passed for my free cup of tea and any request for water or other soft drink was greeted by an unfriendly scowl and apparent incomprehension. I didn’t like to press the point, either, in case one of the giant man-women got me in a full nelson and body slammed me onto the gangway floor.

 

The seats had obviously come from a medieval torture chamber and the pilot was a real loony, bringing us into land with a kamikaze style screaming dive that almost exploded my head – the sudden reduction in cabin pressure bringing me, sweating and groaning, to the edge of unconsciousness and leaving me almost stone deaf for half of my holiday so every conversation sounded like it was coming to me while submerged in a swimming pool, with pains in my ears that felt as if some torturing bastard was jamming meat skewers into my eardrums.

 

You just can’t pay for service like that.

 

Course you holiday camps can’t. Don’t talk prison blocks.

 

 

 

 

I Hear Ya.

Just because you can’t see God doesn’t mean He doesn’t exist. I can’t see Him either, I just hear His voice in my head. Usually in the wee small hours. He whispers things to me and I go and do them. Why those particular people had to be taken out, I don't know, but mine is not to reason why. I was just following orders.

 

For some reason the judge wouldn’t take that into account, refused me bail and had me put into a secure psychiatric unit.

 

Must be an atheist.

 

I don't much care for this jacket they've got me wearing and typing with your nose is no fun at all.

Kill the Cabbage!

Way back in the 1970s, a scientific study showed that plants react to pain. Wired to an encephalograph, when a plant had its leaf burnt with a lighter, the needles on the graph went haywire. More than that, however, after repeating this process a number of times, when one plant was burned, all the plants nearby “screamed” as well. So not only do plants feel pain, they communicate with each other to boot.

After this experiment had been done over several days (always the same nasty white-coated man doing the burning), the moment the experimenter even entered the room, all of the plants “screamed”, although the needles on the graph showed no reaction to any of the other people in white coats.

Thus, these plants were showing reaction to pain, communication with each other, sympathy with their plant friend’s pain - even those that had never been burned themselves - and the ability to differentiate the man with the lighter from all of the other scientific bods wandering in and out, showing distress or fear before he even commenced torturing any of them.

Finally, these scientists found that all living cells, even the scrapings from the roof of someone’s mouth, showed the same reactions. They concluded, therefore, that all living things are somehow in sympathy with all other living things. These experiments have also been replicated since and have gained the same results, so this was no freak set of data.

The author of the book “Supernature” (where I first read about all this), Lyle Watson, said his research had lead him to the conclusion that the only way to have a clear conscience would be if he only ate cabbages that had died of natural causes. He also said he imagined grass screaming whenever he walked over it.

So, short of becoming a fruitarian and only eating windfall, i.e. fruit that has fallen from the tree naturally (no picking!), it is impossible to keep yourself alive without killing things. Hey, smug vegan, that lettuce you're munching on is screaming its head off (lettuce, head, get it?).

Personally, given that the carrots in my fridge are facing a horrific death by boiling, while the chicken has already met its maker in a slightly less barbaric fashion, it’s chicken and chips for my dinner and no troubled conscience. I will also honour the poor bird’s death by ensuring not one scrap of meat is left before chucking out the stripped carcass. The juicy parson’s nose* will, of course, be the first thing shoved into my gob. It’s the least I can do.

And don’t worry about the chips. They are of the pre-murdered oven variety and beyond feeling any further pain. RIP chips - in my tummy.


(*See "Parson's Nose" elsewhere on this blog, but only if you enjoy laughing).



 

Incoming!

Whenever an aeroplane full of excited holiday makers flies over my house, I get this horrible feeling that it’s about to explode in mid-air and crash. Then I cross my fingers and pray that the mangled scorched wreckage and its cargo of burning passengers doesn’t smash right through my living room window.

 

Just finished decorating, see.

 

Twelve pounds fifty a roll that bloody wallpaper cost me!

 

...Also, isn't it absolutely staggering how they make aeroplanes fly in the first place. Hundreds of tons of metal, rubber and plastic and somehow they get these huge, wonderful machines, up into the sky and keep them there for hours and hours and hours. Amazing!

 

It’s even more amazing (not to mention spectacular) when one crashes, putting the kibosh on all the gay cabin staff, the makeup-caked trolley dollies and eight dozen screaming passengers. I bet the pilot doesn’t get a reference after that.

 

Of course a life jacket under the seat is a waste of bleedin' time! Don’t talk black boxes!

 

 

 

I'll leave you with this tip. When flying anywhere, always sit right at the back of the plane.

 

Never yet heard of one that "reversed" into a mountain. 

 

 

 

Humpty Dumpty

Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall.

 

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.

 

All the king’s horses and all the king’s men, couldn’t put Humpty together again. Mainly because the evil swines had galloped back and forth over him several times, trampling his broken shell-like body into the mud to make sure he was properly dead.

 

And they were laughing.

Bunny in a Matchbox

I wish I had a fluffy little bunny with huge blue eyes and floppy ears. Then I could hurl it at a brick wall, scientifically proving once and for all that “cute” does not bounce.

 

Millions of Vietnamese guinea pigs have found their way onto dinner plates using that exact methodology, which is where I got the idea from.

 

Next on my research schedule is to disprove the statement “as safe as houses”.

 

The petrol and matches are ready to go.

 

I’d be out if I were you.

 

 

 

...On an unrelated matter, I think the company that make Matchbox Cars should be done under the Trade Descriptions Act (1968). I put my replica e-type jag in the road and let three double-decker buses and an ice cream van run over it and it still wouldn’t fit in a matchbox. It was too wide!

 

Deliberately mislead us with false advertising. That's what they do. Fraudsters.

Easy Peasy

I can rhyme quite easily, age on age

Filling up each long blank page

Spouting words with little meaning

A fault for which I have a leaning
 

Because I’m here you keep on reading

When mercy is what your heart is pleading

And though I have a kindly heart

You must finish all before we part
 

Ever had a dream where you can’t escape

The victim of murder, robbery, or rape

Chased by monsters and can’t get away

Well, you’re in one now, even though it’s day
 

The poet spins in darkened grave

Niceties’ eternal slave

This tosh insults his metered ear

But he’s down there, while I’m up here
 

So let him keep his clever wits

While I write on of bums and tits

Being worthy ain’t my gig

Which rhymes, of course, with pig or prig
 

Everything I write will match

Day and night, but here’s the catch

Is my poetry worth a light

Or is it just a bag of shite
 

I sod about with words and rhymes

A thousand, thousand, thousand times

Sausage-like I’ll string my words

Writing of plums, whey and curds
 

I must stop now to my great sorrow

But I’ll be back upon the morrow

Filling paper white or blue

With, yes, a great big heap of poo

 

 

 

 

Bonkers in the Nut

Can you really become insane, if worried that may be the case
Surely you can’t go loop the loop with such a solid base

Can you get to crazy town if you think you are on the train
Surely insanity would soon remove such insight from your brain

 

Can the loony gene creep up on you if standing vigilant guard
Could it slip past all defences, or would that be just too hard

Can a complete and utter basket case be aware of his mad condition
Or is a loosened screw too tiny to spot, even with perfect vision

 

Can you be bonkers in the nut, but sane enough to feel it creeping
Or does madness take its hold when the brain’s switched off and sleeping

Can you really be a crazy person if you know you’re acting weird
Guess I’ll just have to question the magic creatures in my beard

Sponsored Walk

I was thinking about doing a charity walk to Brighton and back. Then it occurred to me that it might be a bit too ambitious. I’m not the fittest person around, what with all the laying about in bed and constant boozing. Not to mention the chips, cakes, kebabs, marijuana, fizzy pop by the bucketful and my intravenous coffee intake. A little too much self abuse leaves the old legs a bit wobbly, too. That doesn't help when you're clinically obese and have twenty stone of lard to cart about. 

 

Anyway, I decided a walk across all the Thames’ bridges in London might be a bit more manageable. Decision made, I had another beer, put a couple of pasties and a tray of chips in the oven, smoked a fat joint and set about planning the route. Cross over bridge, walk along, cross back, walk along, cross over next bridge ... I’d almost plotted very nearly five bridges in my A to Z - three actually - when I got to thinking about how tiring it would be. Not only that, but there was the wear and tear on my shoes to consider and being London, there would always be the chance of a light drizzle, or of it being just a bit too warm.

 

My bridge walk was starting to look like a bridge too far, especially considering the bad name I would end up with for taking a cut from the sponsorship proceeds to cover necessary expenditure on lager, burgers and sweets; plus the shoe wear and tear thing, of course. It’s not as though I can afford to sue anyone for defamation of character, so they could call me all the thieving lowlife scumbags under the sun and get away with it.

 

I suppose I could have done the walk and just kept all the money raised. Selflessly walking over all those bridges would be damned hard work, after all (particularly if it did turn out to be just a bit too warm) and surely deserved some kind of reward? It’s not as if I actually know any skint cripples who need the dosh. They all get more benefits than I do anyway and they don’t even pay rent in those homes.

 

If I did go down the route of trousering the cash, I realise I would have to keep quiet about pocketing it, but figure I could avoid possible prosecution by saying that had been the plan all along in really tiny small print at the bottom of the sponsorship form. You know, a bit like the sort insurance companies use to get out of ever honouring any claims. It’s OK for them to take the piss out of their customers, but if I helped myself to a few measly pounds meant for less fortunate bib-dribblers, suddenly I’d be the bad guy! Not sure if keeping the cash could be described as an act of God, though. That might be pushing my luck a bit.

 

I haven’t even got many friends, so probably couldn’t raise more than about thirty quid and that wouldn’t exactly give sight to the blind, or tongues to those talking-difficulties types who grunt and wave their hands about a lot. Might be just as well to give the idea up as a bad job. My shoes have already got holes in them anyway and all that walking would only make them worse.

 

There's that possible light drizzle to take into account as well. If that didn’t hold off, I bet I would even be condemned for buying an umbrella, or for sitting in the pub all day drinking the sponsorship money away until it stopped spitting outside. These charity donors are always tight like that. Don’t see them doing a bridge walk when it’s drizzling, or a bit too warm. Oh no, all too happy to leave that to genuinely concerned people like me. Hypocrites. 

 

Sod it. I think I’ll smoke another joint and eat some toffee instead. Don’t suppose any of you fancy sponsoring a bacon-sandwich-athon? No?

 

Sleepathon?

 

 

 

 

Arachnophobia

When I was a young boy of eight, I knew this evil little swine called Tom who used to catch spiders, pull all their legs off and collect them in a matchbox. He had hundreds of them in there.

 

One day, Tom offered to show me his much-prized, though gruesome leg collection and as I leaned over to take a closer look, the rotten sod pretended to chuck them at me. Well, always having been completely terrified of spiders, I panicked and jumped back, in the process accidentally smacking my sister in the face with my elbow and making about two pints of blood gush out of her nose.

 

So it wasn’t all bad news. Fat cow.

Icy Wasteland

I was watching the news the other night about some awful disaster, when I became transfixed by the image of a young, half-starved boy. He was trudging through a huge snow drift, whipped by howling arctic winds, every step obviously costing him a great effort. Wrapped in a threadbare blanket and little else, his feet were protected against the freezing temperatures by only a skimpy pair of socks and thin, open-toed sandals, more appropriate for a desert than an icy wasteland.

 

I was absolutely horrified. I’d never seen anything so terrible, or quite so pathetic. I ask you, socks with sandals! Didn’t his parents ever teach him any fashion sense?

Pet Ferret

I was sitting on the bus the other day thinking about the two pet cats I used to own and how I would spend half my life cleaning out their litter tray, or picking up sicky fur-balls, when I began to wonder if a ferret wouldn’t be a better bet. A better pet, actually.

 

It seemed like a good idea at first, until the ferret I was imagining turned nasty and bit me. Flipping painful, I can tell you. Made me realise just what poor old Richard Whiteley had been put through on his afternoon TV show all those years ago when a piece on ferrets went sour and the one he was holding locked its teeth on his finger and wouldn't let go. The ferret wrangler telling him it was only playing didn't cut much ice, that's for sure.

 

To get my imaginary ferret off, I had to force my mobile phone into its mouth to prise its jaws open and it hurt so much, I got really angry and shouted at it and waved my bloody hand in its face.

 

“Look what you’ve done, you spiteful little git!” I yelled. “I saved you from the ferret sausage factory out of the goodness of my heart and just look at the thanks I get!”

 

A moment later, a girl walked past the bus toting a fine pair of baby feeders and attention grabbed, my pet ferret ceased to exist. Sad really. Even if it was a bit aggressive.

Fear of Flying

I have a mate who is absolutely terrified of flying. He’s never been abroad for a vacation unless he could get where he was going using boats, trains and coaches and eventually, sick of wasting half of his leave days travelling to and from his holiday destination, he decided to do something about it and booked himself onto one of those fear of flying courses.

 

He went last weekend. It crashed. No survivors.

 

I suppose I should have said “had a mate”

 

A fear of static caravans may have been a safer option.

 

Or milk floats.

White Lightning

My family never had much money when I was growing up and couldn’t afford to buy me expensive toys and games like the other kids had. To make up for this paucity of plastic playthings, I developed a truly amazing imagination and came to inhabit a world that was authentic in every detail.

 

My favourite escapist game was daydreaming about being a cowboy. Not any old cowboy, but the greatest gunslinger around. I was a good guy with a hard edge and baddies feared me and my blazing law-bringer because they knew I was super fast, deadly accurate and remorseless in my battle against the forces of evil.

 

Like any decent lawman, I rode a fantasy steed called White Lightning – an equine friend more fleet of foot and more loyal than any other horse in the west. Wore an imaginary Stetson to shade the hot sun from my eyes (even when there was a bit of a light drizzle outside). Had a pretend Winchester thrust through a loop on my fanciful, hand-tooled, Mexican saddle and toted a made up colt 45, complete with non-existent mother-of-pearl handle, carried in a fictional many-notched holster slung low on my hip.

 

In my time as a fake US marshal, I cleaned up several lawless towns, tracked and gunned down many a murdering bank robber and rogue comanchero, butchered the entire Indian nation (in my day, pre PC, the injuns were always the bad guys), created the legend of the mysterious hero on the thundering white stallion and kissed two girls from my school, Sharon and Tracey, whom I liked to visualise as pretty and obliging inhabitants of my tough western utopia – though in reality they were the pillows off of my bed.

 

A large, tatty, soft toy monkey I owned came in handy during my cowboy games and we had regular fist fights, in which I would punch him from one side of the room to the other and back again. We would roll around the floor, Mickey trying to strangle me and then I would gain the upper hand and throw him against the wall like a Vietnamese guy killing a guinea pig.

 

Mickey’s face (Mickey the Monkey) was made of rubber and squashed under my knuckles in a most satisfying manner. Usually, outlaw Mickey was called Roger Cooper, named after a little shit from my school who used to twist my ear or give me dead legs and I would beat him mercilessly. If voodoo worked, Roger would have been black, blue and dead.

 

Anyway, one day, I was galloping along on White Lightning in hot pursuit of a particularly vile bunch of outlaws who had just robbed and murdered a stagecoach full of young women (including that bitch Sharon, who I’d gone off after she spat on my school blazer when I was standing in front of her in the dinner queue), when an unfortunate accident occurred.

 

Just as I drew my shiny peacemaker to bring down the first of the leering, unshaven desperadoes, a mentally constructed diamond-back rattle snake slithered into my path, thus spooking my pretend steed, causing him to rear up and throw me violently to the ground. I hit the mythical desert floor hard and the jarring impact made my dreamt up six-gun go off – the imaginary wayward bullet entering my head via my nose, blowing out my heroic brains and allowing the villains to escape.

 

I was never the same after that.

 

These days, I just drink a lot of White Lightning, rock back and forth a lot and dribble down my chin. I still miss my super powers, though. Particularly the x-ray vision and my bat cape. Wibble.

 

 

　

Pedal Off!

I hate ruddy cyclists. There, the cat’s out of the bag. Face it, push-bikers contribute nothing, don’t pay any road tax and if one ever runs into you or your car you will discover, to your cost, that they don’t have any insurance either. I don’t drive and never have, so I’m hating cyclists purely from the perspective of a pavement basher, but one who still sees the essential unfairness of one bunch of road users freeloading off another bunch.

 

Bikers ride on the pavements even when no single car is in sight. They weave through pedestrian precincts and dodge down the wrong side of the road as if they were invulnerable to harm. They sail through traffic lights, road junctions and crossings, ignoring common sense and all the rules of the highway, terrifying innocent shoppers and mums with prams and toddlers, intimidating people on foot with their near silent approaches, with no slightest sign of remorse or sense of wrongdoing.

 

They ride like brainless idiots, scooting in and out of traffic, going from road to footpath and back again, without signalling their intentions or giving a moment’s thought to the motorists who have to slam on their brakes or swerve dangerously in order to avoid them. They don’t give a rocket-propelled shit about anyone but themselves, yet still have the cheek to feel they are hard done by, constantly whining about the lack of cycle lanes (which they rarely use anyway, even though they are provided gratis, courtesy of tax-paying car drivers), forever bleating about how inconsiderate other road users are to them, for crying out loud. The traffic lights do apply to you as well you know, dickheads.

 

And what is their excuse for acting like crazed mobile yobs and expecting the rest of us sinners to dodge out of their saintly leg-powered ways? That they are using an environmentally friendly mode of transport, that’s what. Well, you dangerously bloody arrogant cycling terrorists ain’t too friendly to my environment. No sir. May I also point out, here, that the bicycle was not designed for lazy chavs to walk their lead-less muzzle-less pet pit-bull Sampson, nor are they meant to be used as mobile telephone kiosks. In other words:

 

WATCH WHERE YOU’RE GOING CLOWN!

 

And I hope the dope on the racing bike who jumped the red light and almost knocked me down recently, broke his sweaty weather-beaten neck about ten yards further up the road. If I see that whelk again, I’m going to tip him over and watch him wriggling like an upended beetle, struggling to get his feet out of the stirrups before a huge tanker lorry comes roaring past and squishes him into paste like the turd-burrowing insect he is.

 

Personally, I would like to see a total holocaust among this breathtakingly selfish fraternity of bi-wheeled ignoramuses. Then, once we’d wiped out the sticky-Lycra wearing buggers, we could have all their mountain bikes melted down and turned into electric trams and statues of famous walkers like Scot of the Antarctic, Ian Botham and various American astronauts. The latter didn’t walk very far, I know, but it was on the moon, so hey, that’s still gotta count.

 

Anyway, cyclists, I hate you because you are a menace to the public, a pain in the bum with your bitching about car drivers when you are to blame in almost every accident and near miss and because you think it’s OK to dump your bike wherever you like – on the floor outside shop doorways, for example, because you’re only concerned with what you want to buy and not if anyone else can actually get into the place thanks to your thoughtlessly erected barricade.

 

Mind you, at least cycling with criminal stupidity means the mortality rate on the roads for bikers must be considerably higher than for other users and with each one that gets themselves wiped out, I guess that makes the rest of us that little bit safer.

 

Tossers, the lot of you. Use a bit of common sense and common decency and who knows, I might stop hating you. Except for Boris the bike Johnson, the fat blond philanderer, with his stupid rent a bike scheme, wasting untold millions putting gaudy bright blue cycle lanes all over the bloody place that will likely get used about as often as the moon turns the same colour as the lanes.

 

There’s one bike lane near me at the end of a quiet, rarely used road, and it’s about five feet long with a little bollard separating it from the road proper. Why? What for? How much did it cost and which over paid wazzock decided it was a good idea? These people are so dumb, it’s enough to make you spit red-hot rivets. That money could have gone to the kid’s hospital or a hospice, instead it’s wasted on an unused bit of green tat on the road that probably took about six council workers to lay.

 

And just to add insult to injury, that wally, Ken Livingstone, when incumbent as mayor of London, decided it would be a good idea to also put cycle lanes on the pavements at Vauxhall where I live (one of the heaviest used road junctions anywhere). So now, as a pedestrian, you can avoid getting knocked down by traffic, think you’ve made it to safety and still risk getting killed crossing the cycle lane to the pavement proper after foolishly dropping your guard. No pelican crossing for those and if you’re blind or can’t move too quickly, then God help you.

 

Then we get rid of that fool Livingstone and Boris the bike spends millions putting in blue cycle lanes all over the place (no doubt blue to differentiate his madness from the green madness that came before) which I have NEVER seen one cyclist using. Not one. Not ever. What he should have done is had written right down the middle of them in huge yard-high letters “DO NOT CYCLE HERE, IT IS STUPID AND DANGEROUS AND MAY RESULT IN DEATH OR INJURY TO INNOCENT PEOPLE” and then the cycling morons would have been all over them like ants.

 

And quit the wheelies, already. If that’s the only lame trick you can do it just makes you look like a sap. Unless you intend falling off and seriously injuring yourself, in which case, please continue. I like a good belly laugh and seeing any of you pig ignorant cycling maniacs bleeding on the pavement is one of life’s simple pleasures…

 

Did I mention that I hate ruddy cyclists, by the way?

 

 

 

 

Jolly Wheeze

A good practical joke to pull on a friend while walking in the countryside, if visiting an exotic continent where he isn’t familiar with the local fauna, at least, is to tie a six-foot length of string to a large twig and secretly attach it to his belt. Once that’s done, you should tap him on the shoulder and warn him he is being stalked by a “deadly branch snake”, one of the three most venomous and aggressive reptiles in the world. Keep a straight face while telling him this and try to look as worried and fearful as possible so that he is fully convinced.

 

Naturally, as your buddy begins to move away from the area, the twig will follow right behind him, wriggling “menacingly” through the grass and with any luck, he will panic and break into a run.

 

To frighten him even more, by this time you should be screaming for help and waving your arms frantically above your head, while warning him, in a loud, shrill voice, that the snake is almost upon him and that no anti-venom for this particular viper exists. Make it very clear that a single bite and he will be as dead as the proverbial doornail in ten agonising minutes, shortly after his face has turned black and his tongue has swollen to the size of a half-inflated rugby ball. Which fate, no amount of desperate poison-sucking-out, or tourniquets will save him from.

 

Driven to a dribbling frenzy, your mucker will take to his heels and run and run, crying, pooping his pants and gabbling madly, until you finally lose sight of him completely. Of course, with no possible way he can outdistance the branch snake, short of ripping off his strides and hurling them into a bush, he will eventually drop to the floor exhausted, freeze in the foetal position from sheer terror and very likely black out entirely.

 

At this point, when you stumble across his unconscious body, you can wake him up by urinating on his face and then explain that the whole thing had simply been a jolly wheeze on your part. He is likely to be a bit peeved at first, but then will see the funny side and congratulate you on your convincing gag. That’s if some big hairy thing with fangs hasn’t got to him first and killed and eaten him.

 

Should that be the case, you will likely only discover an odd tuft of your pal’s scalp, a few scattered teeth and one or two gnawed bones. This will mean that your amusing scam has backfired somewhat and that it might be best if you kept quiet about the whole affair.

 

Alternatively, if your easily fooled friend has been badly mauled, but is still breathing, finish him off with the put-them-out-of-their-misery attachment on your Swiss army knife. Be sure to keep the wounds irregular and in keeping with him having been savaged by one or more large critters. Don't want some interfering jungle Miss Marple catching you out, after all. Then you can fly home and driven insane by guilt and remorse, hack your family into bloody kebabs with a garden hoe, or other sharp-edged tool, before being shot dead through your kitchen window by a trigger-happy police marksman.

 

Dear oh dear, and all because your gullible chum was stupid enough to run away from a harmless bit of stick in the first place. Let’s face it, daft sod deserved to die.

 

And your nagging wife and her parasite children.

 

I also know a practical joke about a fatal untreatable disease, but that involves drugging them first so you can put the required green and yellow marks all over their bodies with felt tip pens. Trouble with that one is, sometimes you are a tad too heavy-handed with the drugging part of the exercise and they never wake up. Where’s the fun in that? I found it a complete waste of effort.