23 August 2003
Well, I had an interesting summer. Finally, after months of trying, I managed to get onto 'Who wants to be a millionaire'. I had a plan, of course, you can't go onto one of these game shows without a good plan.
I found a very clever horse who knew a lot of general knowledge, and stuff like interesting historical facts and soap opera characters. And I trained him to respond to the questions on 'Millionaire' as follows: if the correct answer was 'A', he would tap his foot once; if it was 'B', he would tap his foot twice; if it was 'C', he would tap his foot three times. For the answer 'D', he would do a backflip, because being a horse he couldn't count to four.
It was all going swimmingly, we got onto the show, and I left Harry the horse in the stables at the front of the audience (you don't usually see them on TV because they blend in so well). I was answering the questions well until I got to the �32000 one. I sat there, reading out the question, that was my cue for Harry to give his answer.
But by a bizarre coincidence one of the other contestants had exactly the same plan as me, but had brought along a lady horse. There was quite a rumpus coming from the stables by now. Needless to say, Harry wasn't concentrating on the questions, and I went home with only �1000.
My friend Bob is forever coming up with great time-saving ideas. Yesterday he told me about his latest invention - a self-frying river of fish. All you need is a sort of dam across a river. On one side of the dam is just water, like any other river. On the other side of the dam is a boiling mixture of batter and fat. When the fish swims through the dam it is instantly deep fried, and there you have a freshly fried fish. All it takes is an extensive system of vacuum powered pipes and it can be delivered direct to any chip shop in the country.
The only flaw in Bob's brilliant plan is the dam itself. It needs to be made of some kind of uni-directional semi-porous material which allows fish to travel through one way but doesn't let batter travel through it the other way.
After many trials in Bob's house using his long-suffering goldfish, we finally found the perfect material. To make it, take three hundred old socks, sow them together in a latticed pattern, then sellotape lots of lettuce leaves all over one side. After leaving it to dry for two days, drill a fish-sized hole in the middle. The hole lets the fish in, and the lettuce provides a watertight barrier to the batter.
Another of Bob's ideas came from a discussion we were having about mosquitoes. When Bob and his girlfriend sleep in the same room the mosquitoes always bite her, and not him. Now, this may have something to do with the fact that there's a lot more of her. But Bob seems to think it's to do with high cholesterol - mosquitoes are attracted to whoever has the higher level.
This got us thinking. How about if you bought a hamster and fed it nothing but lard. This sort of 'sacrificial lamb' would take all the mosquito bites and leave its owners free to get a peaceful night's sleep. Since then we've started an obese-hamster rescue shelter which doubles as a mosquito decoy breeding-ground. What a great idea!
I can never get used to the idea of getting married. It's not that I have a fear of intimacy or anything, it's just that the decision seems pretty final. It's like declaring at cricket. You're pretty much saying, 'That's it! This is the best woman I can find. I'm going to take a gamble that I won't meet a better woman in my lifetime.' That's quite a gamble to make!
I have fairly old-fashioned views on sex. When it comes to homosexuality, I have to say I'm with the church on that one. I've nothing against gay people, it's just that thing they do, it's a bit messy.
Of course, at least gay people have the argument that they don't have much choice. It's far worse when you get straight couples experimenting with their back doors.
Having anal sex with a woman is like using a spanner to fix a blocked toilet. That tool should not be going in there, and you're just going to get covered in shit.
Recently I've been eating a lot of Camembert. Brie, Cheddar and Stilton too. I'm so glad I let Cheeses into my life.
My uncle used to work at London zoo. He was a very promising young zookeeper, popular with the animals. Until one day he was raped by a lion. Ohh, the shame!
I was just thinking, who was it who discovered mouth-to-mouth resuscitation? And what did he think he was doing? Some kind of necrophile I guess.