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The Beginners' Guide to:

DEATH

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Death certificate
You won’t be allowed to die unless you get one of these. Questions include: Do you dress predominantly in beige? Do you tut every time you turn the TV on? Do you smell faintly of catfood even after a shower?

Grim Reaper
The Jolly Reaper, the Reaper with the Big Fat Smile, and the Singing, Dancing Reaper in the Pantaloons didn’t really cut it.

Last words
Zymurgy, Zythepsary, and Zythum.

Dying wish
HELP!!!!!!

Clinical death
An expertly performed demise.

Overdose
You think you are, and then it kills you.

Coma
Some people take a very long time to reach full stop.

Time to meet your maker
And ask for a refund.

Absence of vital signs
Often associated with death. Involves lack of directions such as “Blind Bend”, “Danger, 20,000 Volts”, and “Quicksand”.

Shroud
You shroud have driven more slowly.

Coroner
Beer drunk at a wake.

Lying in state
When the undertaker hasn’t had a chance to tidy up the corpse.

Laying out the body
Having a fight with the corpse because you’ve drunk too much coroner.

Cadaver
Rogueish corpse that eyes up young ladies with bounderish intent.

Crematorium
Place where bodies are burned. It helps to be dead first.

Funeral
What smoke comes out of at the crematorium.

Pyre
Tall structure used for cremation in ancient times. The body is placed a long way up so mourners can’t hear the screams if the witchdoctors have got it wrong. Has been suggested for the funeral of Margaret Thatcher.

Vault
Unit of electricity used to execute juvenile or mentally disturbed ethnic minority Americans.

Hearse
When a couple dies, they have his and hearse corteges.

State funeral
Funeral!

Mourner
Greeting spoken at funerals in the West Country.

Elegy
If you’ve got one of these, you’re a scientist. Albeit a dead scientist.

Grave
French accent. Used when French doctors are giving patients mauvais news.

Inter
Football team comprised of Italian gravediggers.

Headstone
Way a footballer can die.

Six feet under
Death of a threesome.

Wake
Curious name for celebration when this is the last thing the deceased is expected to do.

Urn
What dead pop stars continue to do after death.

Decompose
What classical musicians do after death.

“If I should die, think only this of me”
That there is some corner of a foreign field that will be forever attractive to local dogs.

“Rage against the dying of the light”
Especially when it’s your last cigarette.

“Death, where is thy sting?”
Unfortunate mix-up between Grim Reaper and honeybee.

“The evil that men do is oft interred with their bones”
But not always. Michael Jackson’s songs are all over the radio.

Afterlife
Bit like an afterparty. Promises lots of fun, but you’re not sure if you’ll be let in even if you can find it in the first place.

Reincarnation
The idea that you’ll come back as a butterfly or a beetle. Scientists have squashed this notion.

Will
Won’t.

Conclusion
Or is it?…

The Beginners' Guide to:

Tennis

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Net
Profit made by Wimbledon from hundreds of thousands of visitors who claim to like tennis for two weeks of the year when, in fact, they spend most of their time eating soft fruit, drinking Pimm’s, and waving dementedly at TV cameras like middle-class versions of the auditionees in The X Factor.

Fred Perry
Evil genius who used his fame as a winner of Wimbledon to flood the world with pastel-coloured short-sleeved sports shirts with all the fashion appeal of Tim Henman’s haircut.

Tim Henman’s haircut
Modelled on Anne Widdecombe’s as a ploy to distract his opponents. This ultimately failed as the really good ones know to look at the ball, not their opponents’ head.

Real tennis
As opposed to the matches that took place inside Tim Henman’s head, and which he won.

Sharapova, Kusnetzova, Petrova
It’s all ova now.

Scoring system
In the men’s game, generally heterosexual. The women’s game is more fluid.

Knock up
See “Scoring system”

Lawn Tennis
Form of tennis that caught on in the Victorian era. Larder Tennis, Cupboard Under The Stairs Tennis, and Horse-Drawn Carriage Tennis didn’t really catch on.

Tennis Pro
See “Knock Up”.

Davis Cup
Variety of Pimm’s served with strawberries.

Smash
One Davis Cup too many.

Ball boys and girls
In days gone by, when players ran out of balls, children from the local workhouse were hit over the net.

Racquet
Noise the ballboys and girls made.

Tramline
Way that poor ballboys and girls used to get to Wimbledon. Commemorated in the name of the part of the court where their dead bodies would be laid out before collection at the end of each match.

Umpire
Referee who sits on a tall chair. When tennis began, local workmen were employed to ‘ump ‘im ‘igher, leading to the name.

Lob
Spectator who didn’t go to a good enough school.

Ooh I say
Tennis equivalent of “fuck me!”

Backhand
Type of compliment that’s really an insult, eg, “She’s the British number one”.

Rally
The Nuremburg Open.

Service line
White mark you stand behind waiting for strawberries and cream.

Service break
The strawberries have run out.

Cliff
What anyone who sings at Wimbledon should be thrown off.

Murray mount
Lots of women aim for this at Wimbledon every year. Apparently, you can’t hurry a Murray mount.

Nadal
Type of Spanish orange. Spanish, orange, tennis player, that is.

Federer
Type of hat worn by stylistically-challenged Swiss men.

Sampras
Character from The Virginian who went on to have a successful career as Pistol Pete the tennis player.

Borg
Automaton at war with the Tennis Federation.

Lendl
Film starring Barbra Streisand as a cross-dressing Jewish tennis player.

Hawkeye
Friend of Sampras.

Slice
Lemon found in Davis Cup.

Return
Cheapest ticket for the tramline. Many ballboys and girls didn’t use the second portion of the ticket.

Doubles
It’s happy hour at the Davis Cup tent.

Mixed doubles
The snakebite of the Davis Cup tent.

Top seed
Type of grass favoured by Wimbledon.

Second seed
Sowing the court takes a long time as they have to…

Third seed
…count every bit of grass…

Fourth seed
…that goes into the court.

Set
Comprises two racquets, a net and some balls. They cost £9.99 from Argos.

Tiebreak
When the game has to stop because someone in the crowd isn’t correctly attired for the occasion.

Wimbledon
Head of the Tennis Mafia.

Advantage
What the children of rich parents who can afford tennis lessons have.

Overrule
There are six balls in an over. Not a lot to do with tennis.

Conclusion
A foreigner wins again. But no-one cares that much because they’re not really into the tennis anyway.

The Beginners' Guide to:

SMOKING

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smoking

Origins
Sir Walter Raleigh was the inventor of smoking. He tried potatoes, but they didn’t burn very well, and ended up singeing the King of Spain’s beard. Mashed tobacco was just as bad an idea. Eventually he got it right.

Cigarette paper
Trade journal for tobacconists.

Fag
Public schoolboy detailed to buy cigarettes.

Tar
Informal response when someone offers you a cigarette.

Low tar
Informal response when you offer a Hobbit a cigarette.

Plain cigarettes
So strong they have to be smoked in the great outdoors.

Tip
Don’t smoke.

Rolling tobacco
Ancient pastime practised on the hillsides of Virginia.

Chewing tobacco
Lighting cigarettes has proved too tricky for some Americans.

Pipe tobacco
City-wide delivery system pioneered by the Victorians in London. Unfortunately one discarded match led to the city being nicknamed The Big Smoke.

Smoke ring
Secret organisation dedicated to clandestine indoor smoking.

Rough shag
Indulged in before a smoke.

Ready rubbed
Post coital smoke.

Ashtray
Noise smokers make when they sneeze.

Cigarette butt
Big ashtray.

Smokers cough
They do, they do.

Cigarette holder
Smoker.

Gitanes
Moi non plus.

Gauloises
The smell of France. Assuming you can got over the stench from the hole-in-the-floor toilets, the garlic breath, and the exhaust fumes from cars made from corrugated iron and onion peelings.

Marlboro man
Corpse.

Benson and Hedges
Comedy duo, whose biggest joke was: “I say, I say, I say – cigarette companies say they’ve got proof tobacco isn’t either addictive or dangerous!”. Smokers died laughing.

Cheroot
Wife of former prime minister.

Cigar
Sex toy of former president. Not related to the above. Definitely not related to the above.

Nicotine patches
Put on your jacket to cover the holes caused by burning ash.

Nicorette
Friend of Paris Hilton.

Nicotinell
Heavy-smoking orange seller of Restoration England.

Cancer
Star sign most smokers die under.

Conclusion
Your ash gets scattered.

The Beginners' Guide to:

Reality TV

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Reality TV
When television follows real, unscripted, ordinary events. Like when a middle-aged woman with learning difficulties is catapulted from obscurity, via stardom, then vilification, to the Priory in record time. Television just observes this natural behaviour.

Britain’s Got Talent
Well, maybe, but not the programme-makers, who, if they had any talent for English, would have called it “Britain HAS Talent”.

Piers Morgan
Judge on Britain’s Got Talent. Didn’t have quite enough talent of his own to stay a national newspaper editor.

Simon Cowell
Judge on Britain’s Got Talent, Pop Idol, American Idol, and The X Factor. The reason his trouser waistband is so high is that he has a permanent erection at the thought of how many millions per second he is making.

Amanda Holden
Judge on Britain’s Got Talent. It’s the contestants who prove the hypothesis.

Public vote
They also probably called it voting in the Middle Ages when groups of townspeople gathered around a girl with an unusual freckle, shouting, “BURN THE WITCH! BURN HER!! BURN HER TO ASHES!!!”

Pop Idol
Show where people become idols so the press can have a pop at them.

X Factor
Show where the winners become EX-stars even more quickly than they became stars.

Any Dream Will Do
Unless it’s the one where you are standing on Euston station with no trousers on, being hassled by an aggressive penguin that’s stealing all your giant marshmallows. That probably won’t impress Andrew Lloyd Wierdo.

How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?
You have auditions. Like people have always done.

Fly on the wall
There are always flies around shit.

I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here
Irony.

Bushtucker challenge
When failed Big Brother contestants have to eat out of Davina McCall’s b… hang on… you mean it isn’t?

Ant
What contestants have to eat during a bushtucker trial.

Dec
Area of a reality show around the lawn.

Big Brother
Show that, over the years, has featured a former drug addict, a sex addict, and series of opinionated, self-absorbed twats. And that’s just the presenters.

Diary room
Does not actually feature a diary as this would involve featuring people who can actually write.

Dannii Minogue
X Factor judge whose christening involved a vicar, a typewriter, and a sticky key.

Louis Walsh
X Factor judge who shows a remarkable keenness to groom… sorry, mentor… groups of young boys.

Boot camp
Louis Walsh’s shoes.

Gareth Gates
Singer with a terrible stutter who came second in the first series of Pop Idol. His stutter disappeared when he sang, but he doesn’t like to talk about it.

Fame Academy
Winners were David Sneddon and Alex Parks, which suggests it is less of a finishing school and more of a failing school.

Come Dine With Me
And do try the Hemlock Surprise.

Conclusion
You’re out of the house/room/jungle/academy, your dreams are in tatters, it’s raining and the whole world is talking about your personal problems. Still, at least they paid for your taxi to rehab. Then the taxi driver says you look just like that wanker on the telly…

The Beginners' Guide to:

Pollution

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Car pollution
President Obama is so worried about the low quality of vehicle emissions in the US he is setting new national standards.

Lead pollution
Carbon dioxide. It’s way out in the lead.

Carbon
Pollutant with carbohydrate attachment, making it particularly heavy. This explains the damage carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, etc, do.

Heavy metal
Metal with lots of carbs on.

Light pollution
What we need instead.

Ozone
Area around the former millennium dome where traffic jams form during U2 gigs as thousands of music lovers clog the roads trying desperately to escape.

Noise pollution
U2 gigs.

Pollutant
Tiny creature responsible for pollution. EG Bono.

Acid rain
Popular in the late Sixties.

Toxins
Polluters from Dallas, Ft Worth etc.

Smog
Fog in Scandinavia. Pronouced “smerg”.

Emission
What Yorkshire secret agents go on.

Smoke
Point of a greenhouse.

Greenhouse gas
Smell of perspiration and clandestine cigarettes.

Vapour trail
Follows you as you return from the greenhouse.

Algae
Biggles’s navigator. During a victory roll over the Channel he noticed the seas were turning green. Like the cockpit. And his trousers. Eventually Biggles got the message and stopped doing victory rolls when Algae had a hangover.

CFC
Chelsea Football Club. Have polluted the Premier Division with vast amounts of dodgy Russian money.

Effluent
Kind of society that produces a lot of pollution.

Litter
Raised seat carried by flunkies that rich people use to avoid all the waste paper on the pavements.

Prius
What many eco-friendly car drivers are.

Particulate
Kind of people who are very careful about the sort pollution they emit.

Water pollution
Many young swimmers are not so careful.

Raw sewage
Common in Japan.

Sick building syndrome
It’s called a hospital…

Pesticide
Killing a cockroach.

Herbicide
Killing a bay tree.

Insecticide
Killing a pollutant.

Environmentalist
Person driven insane by pollution.

The Great Smog
Magician. His foul-mouthed performance in 1952 in London forced the government to introduce the Clean Air Act.

Conclusion
Thanks to President Obama, we’re all saved. For about five minutes longer than we would have been otherwise.