Robert Koch – The Musical

I’m not very into musicals. The whole idea of spending two hours watching people burst into song every five minutes, quite frankly, gives me palpitations of a rocky and unnerving manner that no amount of marshmallows can settle. It seems as though a lot of subject matter has been turned into musicals, both in the theatre and also in cinema.

Even Spiderman has been turned into a musical. My friend Steve took a trip to New York a couple of years ago and paid a hefty price to watch ‘Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark’ which, apparently, has music and lyrics by U2’s Bono and The Edge. Which is just unbelievably crazy. I mean it is. Without even dwelling on it, that’s bonkers.

So what next? What will people look at and think that choruses and choreography can improve, that falsettos and furnishings can dazzle? It got me thinking though which, as most people will know, that’s generally a bad thing. Why not turn the spotlight on someone who I personally believe requires a bit more attention? One of those underdogs who never quite got the recognition that they deserve? Cast your mind back to Year 10 history, pull up a chair and listen to the story of good ol’ Bob Koch.

Robert Heinrich Herman Koch. Born 11 December 1843. The guy was so smart he taught himself to read and write before he started school. His research helped to identify the specific causative agents of tuberculosis, cholera and anthrax. I may be copying these details direct from certain wiki I mean certain websites but I deal in facts and not speculation. The man did a lot for medicine and microbiology and yet other than a statue in Berlin his name is relatively unknown.

Enter me. Amateur script writer and overall champion of the unappreciated. I think I’ve got the moxie to write a full play based on his life, with a dash of songs sprinkled generously over the three hour running time. I’ve been working on one this afternoon and I think you’ll agree that it has got something going on. I give you ‘Great Postulates!’:

Great Postulates!

It’s very simple, it’s on your tongue
I’ve got the recipe for an evening of fun
Down at the lab, test tube in hand
No time to dance, put down your jams

My report is imperative you see
It sets out what is necessary
To identify cultures, disease causing organisms
Those dark little things that mess with your rhythms
I’ve put pen to paper so read it loud
Something to make my country proud

Postulates!
I’ve established criteria
Postulates!
Erect your posterior
Postulates!
Cholera, tuberculosis
Postulates!
Here’s my prognosis…

I’m clearly onto a winner. If you would like to buy some shares in the production then please put some money in a brown paper bag and leave on my doorstep. Shares will be posted to you within 30 days.

BBC New Sitcom of the Year 2016 Awards

Good Evening and welcome to the very exciting but very poorly worded ‘BBC New Sitcom of the Year 2016 Awards’. We are judging the suggestions for sitcoms provided by you, the general public, and we are down to the last three.

There will, of course, be a very extensive and elaborate voting process which will commence once the three entries have been revealed. All you need to do is press one of the conveniently-placed buttons on your remote control to vote for your favourite.

Here are the final three entries for your consideration:

BookChop

Deirdre Hanginglass has a dream. Her dream is to own her very own bookshop in the centre of Ipswich. After gaining a wealth of knowledge following her stint in other shops, and with a hefty loan from the bank, she thinks she has found the ideal place. The only problem is that she can only afford half the rent.

Enter Leanne Pandonberry. Leanne is an aspiring butcher who has worked her way through butcher college to gain the qualifications needed. After her Auntie Maeve passed away, leaving a handsome gift, Leanne too seeks shelter within the confines of Ipswich city centre only to find prices just a little too much. Deirdre and Leanne decide to join forces and open the UK’s very first joint butcher book shop.

How can they possibly hope to cope working in opposite ends of the work spectrum? Can uptight Leanne ever hope to mesh with the laid-back antics of Deirdre? And who owns the mysterious milk crate in the back alley?

Dracu-later

Dracula is dead; killed by Jonathan Harker, crumbled to dust. Only he’s not. It was all an act to make everyone go away and leave him alone.

The outside world just wasn’t made for the Count and his crazy hoardes. All he wanted was to suck a couple of necks and nothing more. And with this in mind, he disappears into the shadowy forests surrounding his castle.

That is until he returns. The year is 1987 and life has moved on. The relatives of Van Helsing live on, unaware of Dracula’s continued life. The Count has met a most fortunate woman, Mabel, and following a successful romance moved in with her in a comfy semi-detached hovel in Middlesbrough. The house next door is up for sale and following a successful bid at a local auction the property is sold to… Milo and Janice Van Helsing!

Dracula now not only has to struggle with living in suburbia, and keep his job at Rumbelows, but also keep his true identity hidden from his new neighbours. Can he maintain his begonias and stop himself from sucking the local cats dry?

It would appear as though our final entry, ‘Apple Jews’, about a group of sexy young Jewish men and women working in an Apple store, has had to be disqualified for blatant product placement.

That therefore leaves only two entries in the running.

If you would like to vote for ‘BookChop’ please press the ‘slow’ button on your remote. If you would prefer to opt for ‘Dracu-later’ then please caress the button that looks like a meteor crashing into the sea.

Dear Beans… But Is It A Good Invention?

Dear Beans,

I have been facing a big question for some time now, or at least what I consider to be a big question. It’s been playing at the back of mind on an extended loop for as long as I can remember and even after a long day of whistle pops and candy whistles I lie in bed at night, eyes wide open, pondering how to answer my own query.

In an attempt to bring the matter to a close I asked an endless supply of friends, close friends, family friends, work colleagues and hermits the same thing. The results were inconclusive as far as I’m concerned so I now turn to you in this, my darkest hour.

Is it… is it a good invention?

Why should I feel the need to question myself now? I’ve been an inventor for the best part of twenty years and it is only now that something is so amiss that I cannot decide if it is or is not.

The invention in particular is something I’ve been tinkering with for a couple of months and only recently put into practise. It’s a new style of shoe that is somewhere between the relaxed yet trendy Converse Hi Tops and the relaxed yet trendy debonair of the classic Vans. If you really had to boil it down to the most basic of ideas, however, I would have to describe it as having glued some Quavers to the sides of my trainers.

As you can tell, they’re very understated yet ostentatious. At first I was convinced they were magic but now… there is a rumbling in my gut which isn’t the pork vestibules I had for lunch. Then it made me think that possibly my other recent inventions also weren’t good enough either.

Perhaps nobody needs a pocket antelope.
Perhaps the world isn’t quite ready for the under-trunk over-pants.
Maybe odour eater foot injections are ahead of their time.

What do you think? Is it or are they good inventions?

Yours fluently

HAMM .BSc

Up Close and Personal

Following the recent startling relevation that former news reader Nicholas Witchell is a decent guy who will allow himself to be winched into a sewer to check on the wellbeing of a former 80’s puppet celebrity, it was also revealed the unique complexities of his complexion.

Nicholas Witchell’s face contains smaller versions of his face, and on each of those faces is another collection of faces.

It has not been checked thoroughly but scientists have theorised that the “face phenomena” could go on forever. It could easily rival the ever-expanding universe as the thing that nobody can really comprehend fully because if you did you might hide in a yurt and eat tv guides due to the fact that you’d lost you mind.

It’s dangerous out there.

Lemon Doberman

Do you want a dog?

Really? Do you really, really want a dog? Of course you do you’re a human being, and a human being can’t be a being without a doing. As in you cannot spell the word ‘doing’ without the word ‘dog’.

Hi, I’m Blemish Tuneraft and I’m owner and founder of Lemon Doberman. Lemon Doberman is exactly what you think it is. And it does. We breed and produce dobermans that smell of lemons in a pure and natural way. You may think that science has stuck its big, ugly, man-shaped oars into our processes however it just isn’t true. Everything about our lemony dobermans is legitimate. We have a proven track record.

It isn’t as if we found that the smell of dogs was unpleasant. Not in the slightest. In fact, we are attempting to rustle up some dog-scented aftershave for the first quarter of 2017. No, what we set out to do at Lemon Doberman was to improve on an already well-established and much-loved sanctuary.

Everyone loves a doberman.
Everyone loves the smell of lemons.
Why not combine the two?

The feedback we’ve received has been phenomenal so far. We are looking to send our sweet-smelling doggies into the furthest reaches of the UK and possibly even abroad. If all goes well then who knows? We are hoping that if our rate of success continues to increase at an exponential rate then it will only be a matter of time before Belgian Chocolate Mastiffs and Lavender German Shepherds are available to the general public.

If you’ve got a big heart, a large house and a desire for citrus fruits then you know what you need is a Lemon Doberman.

The Caboodle List – The Seven Tasks of Kevin

I’ve had many jobs in my long and illuminating life. Everything you can think of from washing machine repair man to office monkey to cleaning jockey to whipping boy. I have ticked a lot of boxes and with so many years left to go it’s fair to say that I’ll have a couple more under my belt shortly.

Will any of them ever compare to my bingo trophy though?

That said, recently a new responsibility was thrust upon my paws. Kevin has been at a loose end since his doctor told him that he could no longer perform any further alteration work to his property because it could mean the end of his plica semilunaris. So what does someone do when their very livelihood is taken away from them? They need… BORING CHORES. Normally it would fall to Mr Hill’s lovely but lunatic wife to fill this void, however she has been kind enough to pass the mantle to me so that she is free to pursue her various worthwhile pursuits. Things like, oh I don’t know, goat chasing. That seems like something she would do.

It has taken the last fortnight or so but I believe I have drafted a list the likes of which has never been seen by human EYES before. It is so demanding, so time consuming, so all-encompassing that the chances of Kevin ever doing anything else ever again is slim to none. Kneel before the might of the Caboodle List:

Caboodle List

1. Slice each and every pea in a full bag of frozen peas in three equal portions. If at any point an unequal portion is discovered then Kevin must throw out everything done so far and start with a fresh bag.
2. Remove all of the trodden on chewing gum from the pavements of Main Street in Garforth. A particular haven for the delinquents and youths of the surrounding area, this battered lane of masticated gum receives new donations on a daily basis.
3. Phone every person in the Thomson Local phone book to offer them a free bag of yeast. There are over two million people currently living in West Yorkshire; that’s a lot of minutes and a rather large crick waiting to develop in his neck
4. Recreate ‘Earthly Delights’ by the artist Bosch on the beach in the sand using only a stick within two metes of the sea. Hopefully the water will continually lap against his work thus making the task impossible to complete.
5. Travel from Lands End to John O’ Groats using only a skateboard with a broken wheel or a bike made of marshmallows. This one seems the most feasible of the five so far.
6. Read every book in your nearest bookshop without purchasing any books and without the owners realising. This will require a fair amount of stealth and a lot of patience, especially considering the long and winding narrative of Jonathan Swift.
7. Count out ten thousand pounds in one penny coins. Kev hates change.

There were much more fiendish tasks that could have been set but I believe this is enough to get started. The great thing about the Caboodle List is that matters can be added at any time to bulk them out a bit in case Kev feels bored.

These are the endeavours one must endure as his secretary.

Newsboost – Rowdy Roland Rat Tumble Rumble Roundhouse

NEWS JUST IN!

Roland Rat has fallen down a manhole into the sewer close to his home near Stepney Green.

We have received a report that eighties megastar Roland was enjoying a mid evening jog with fellow tv personality Kevin the Gerbil when he lost his footing and accidentally dropped through the ground into the murky depths below.

Roland Rat shot to fame after discovering he was a puppet and children have a short attention span. Before long he was gracing everything from television to lunch boxes to a really terrible game on the ZX Spectrum.

Rat’s mansion is rumoured to be the second-largest in the whole of the UK, closely behind Mr Chang and his up until recently ever expanding home improvements centre. It also has ten times, or tice, as many toilets as the number in Chris and Elena’s new flat.

The BBC have a newscopter hovering over the manhole and George Alla… George Allegeyah… George Alegra… Nicholas Witchell is being lowered on a rope to interview him.

More to follow as the action happens.

Nana Nanas – Behind The Scenes

Oh hi. I didn’t see you there. Well, seeing as you’ve already jumped over the 8ft high chain-link fence, snuck past the security guards and dodged all the bear traps I left in the lobby you can stay.

We are currently shooting fresh scenes for ITV2’s newest fly-on-the-wall cum soap opera ‘Nana Nanas’ about a group of bananas who join the police force but can’t help get into the strangest and yet also thought-provoking scenarios that reflect the problems of everyday people and everyday life. The only problem is that the cast have a lifespan of about seven days which means that we are constantly having to recruit new actors to fill in the roles. The new actors are given new roles meaning that there is a constant revolving door of bananas starting out, breaking through and retiring within the space of a week. It is a constant headache for the writers who have only been doing this for the best part of a month but are running out of ideas for new characters.

You should also not confuse ‘Nana Nanas’ with ‘Nana Nanas’, which is a coming of age documentary about retired bananas trying to start fresh careers in the twilight of their years and something completely different.

Here you can see young heart-throb Jacob and seductress Cleo indulging in a sexy hot tub moment after a busy day shift. Jacob is in two minds about the whole thing, given how Linda stopped him in the corridor at the station to tell him just how she really feels. Cleo has had designs on Jacob since the last episode and has finally found the chance to make her move. Meanwhile Cleo’s dad, who also happens to be the chief superintendent leader police person king man, has followed them to Jacob’s flat and is furious that his star officer is fraternising with his daughter. As the chaos ensues, notorious, as in for the last two episodes, sex addict and pervert next door neighbour Shonky T. Nuisance looks on, hiding in the corner pretending to be a particularly unconvincing corner lamp.

I know what you’re thinking, and you’re right that it is very little work that results in a huge amount of reward. But isn’t that most of ITV2’s programming schedule?

Guards! Please escort this ruffian off my set, thank you.

Pouring
Beans

Author: Ian “Toasty” McIver