As any biologist will happily tell you, at some point even a physicist must find a suitable mate. Otherwise, where do baby physicists come from? Therefore, it follows that at some point in any physicist's life, there will be a need to procreate. Please see the earlier physicists guide to identifying the sexes, as attempting to procreate with same gender people will prove fruitless. And sometimes p...
If there's one thing that would have me praying for a global rise in temperature, it is snow.
It's depressing. It's disruptive.
I cannot conceive of a single good thing about it.
Other people come out with lines like:
"It makes everything look pretty."
To which my answer is, why is a uniform colour pretty? I much prefer looking at a multifaceted multicolour landscape than WHITE! ev...
Teachers who are currently forty-five years of age will still be teaching in 2035 aged sixty-eight. At least those who make it will. This makes it highly relevant to ask what teaching will be like when they finally limp over the retirement finish line.
The Spoof contacted futurologist James Randi, and asked him.
"The teaching profession was remarkably resistant to change for centuries," said...
Sometimes I wonder what words mean, or where they came from.
Like 'cling film'. It is called 'cling' film because it is clingy and a film, or was it invented by a man called Cling? Or a man called Film? Perhaps both. Perhaps Cling and Film got together and thought "Now there's a good idea" and created cling film.
Then there's the straw boater. It's a kind of hat. Very rarely made out of actu...
New for 2012, executive Pain Relief.
Are you suffering from a pain in the neck or a pain in the backside? Let us help you.
Here at Ass Ass In Pain we can sort that pain out for you.
You don't need to suffer.
We can sort out those persistent pains that trouble you every day, or even that one big pain in the backside that hits you just once.
For a one off payment of £5,000 we will rem...
The following is a spoof fairy tale written by my six year old son (I typed, but it all his own words).
Once upon a time, there was a little girl and little boy who lived with their mum and dad.
One day, they planted some cucumbers. In three weeks, cucumbers started to grow. They grew and grew and grew. The two children and their mum and dad picked the cucumbers' and they took them inside...
Once upon a time the three little pigs came to a river.
"We need to cross this river," said the youngest little pig.
"But we can't swim across," said the middle little pig, "there is a crocodile in the river."
"Then we will need to build boats," said the oldest little pig.
The three little pigs went to find things to build their boats with.
The youngest little pig found a field full...
Even when he was an egg, Ollie knew he was different to the other ducklings.
For a start, his egg was slightly bluish whilst their's were pure brilliant white. Even more obvious, was the size. His egg filled the nest pushing his brothers and sisters to the edge of the nest.
Mother Duck loved them all equally, even though Ollie looked different. Where his brothers and sisters were fluffy and...
We've all been there. Happily blundering in the dark believing that there's no God and that pure random chance and basic high school physics created the universe and all life within it, in it's glorious diversity.
Then suddenly it hits us.
Life is like a train, and we can stay on those single tracks blindly following science, or we could get off at Religion Station.
The great thing about...
"And on judgement day, He will walk among us with his staff held erect," says Revelations 12:8.
"We have been looking at this phrase for the past two thousand years," said Biblical scholar, Samuel Ahmed. "And it was only yesterday when we realised that when God bestrides the earth at the end of days, he will do so with his cock out. It certainly is a book of revelations!"
Based on this rem...
Travelling abroad can be a nightmare, especially when the land contains lots of people who pretend not to understand the English for "Where is the toilet" and you're bursting.
For this reason, we provide this handy guide for locating lavatories anywhere in continental Europe.
English: Excuse me good sir, where are the lavatories?
Italian: Mi scusi spirito di cazzo, dove i gabinetti?
Fren...
Language is in a constant state of flux
What was common 500 years ago will now get you some funny looks
This has been the subject of a great many books
Discussing how they made a verb out of a word like ducks
But for these tomes, they'll charge you fifty bucks
And this piece is free, but not as comprehensive
We can use words to shine light into tiny nooks
And scare away some metaphorical...
In part four of this series, we continue our look at inventions that will probably never be invented, but should be.
Invention One: Jiffy Bags with the bubbles filled with helium instead of nitrogen.
This is a similar idea to filling car tyres with helium in an attempt to reduce weight that we saw last week.
The biggest plus point with this particular approach, in that postage is very e...
As the Spoof's premier reviewer I am sent those things to review that most reviewers would balk at. Today's review is no exception.
It is the Rimmington Epilator for Men, model XS90, which replaces the previous model, the XS60.
The first thing to notice about the XS90 is the array of attachments that come with it. This is an essential part of any gadget for men. Women are happy with a device...
Just when I thought I'd finished reading all of the Existential books my grandfather had bequeathed me, it turned out I'd read nothing, and there was the box, full to the brim with books I'd not read.
Having previously enjoyed reading the last lot of books I no longer had, I thought I'd give the new box a good seeing to. Armed with nothing more than a million candle storm lantern I had liberate...
I recently came into possession of my grandfather's collection of existential books.
The first book, entitled Something from Nothing was three hundred blank pages. I think that is my favourite. It's the kind of book you can dip into and get a good vibe off every page.
I had to stop reading We do not Exist on account of my slowly fading from existence as I got to page fifty. I fear had I carr...
Dear Sally,
Ever since my visit to the proctologist I have found myself liking the feeling and seeking out ever larger and rougher men. Is there a cure? Failing that, could you tell me where to find some nice big men who know how to treat me rough?
Desperate of Nuneaton.
Dear Desperate of Nuneaton,
I'm afraid there is no cure. People like you should be in prison. That's where you'll find the...
Twenty seven is a mystical number in several religions, including the religion that is modern mathematics.
For a start, it is a perfect cube, three to the power three. Twenty-seven to the power three is 19,683. Add those numbers up (1 + 9 + 6 + 8 + 3), you get twenty-seven. Start counting the digits of pi at zero, and when you reach twenty-seven, there, in the digits of pi, is the number twenty...
There is currently an intense debate in the Behavioural and Cognitive Science field over the reliability of memory.
On one side of the debate are those who believe that everything we see, do, touch, smell or hear goes into memory somewhere although not all of it can be retrieved. On the other side are those that think that memory is malleable, approximated and unreliable.
"I seem to recall r...
When somebody sneezes, it is polite to respond with "Bless You".
What do you do if they continue to sneeze, though? This handy guide will guide you through the minefield that is the Etiquette of Sneezing.
For the first sneeze, respond with the traditional "Bless You", even if neither you nor the person sneezing has any religious inclination. The response no longer has any religious overtones...
Boys who went to a mixed school will remember Home Economics, or Home Ec as it was affectionately known. This was a lesson solely for girls.
Many were the stories that abounded about what went on in Home Ec.
So what did girls learn in that lesson explicitly for them?
In a rather sexist way, the main topic in Home Ec was cooking and looking after a home with skills such as ironing and rep...
A recent copy of Ye Olde TV Timef was found in a box in an attic in Basingstoke, and it revealed that the TV Line-ups were not all that different to today's television. The only difference is that Freeview had not been invented back then (and Sky just showed clouds). There was only a small number of channels. Difficult to believe, but there was no cBeebies to take the place of a baby sitter.
BB...