I recently discovered that the consumption of tea may have health benefits, several of which may mean that I am now effectively invincible. I went on a search to find out what superhuman abilities the consumption of tea may grant me. After literally seconds of searching, I came upon the first result on Google.

Antioxidants
Tea contains a lot of antioxidants. I don’t know exactly what antioxidants are, but I assume they have something to do with countering the effects of oxygen, which may at first seem like a bad thing considering that I need oxygen to live. After pondering the fact that I have now been drinking a beverage that may cut off my air supply for about 8 years now, I figured this probably wasn’t what it meant. I found out that it does in fact mean that antioxidants protect me from the signs of ageing and pollution. Therefore, I can begin by adding to my list of superhuman powers immortality and the ability to breathe smog.

Tea protects bones
Like the shimmering “protecting-orb” effects that are prevalent in many a video game, including those ones that I cant remember right now and that other one which I probably didn’t even know the name of in the first place, I at first thought that this meant I would develop a shimmering aura from the consumption of tea which would protect me from attacks. Upon realising this was not so, I still figured it was pretty handy having a substance which would effectively protect bits of me from other things, no matter what the other things were.

Tea strengthens teeth
Now this is very useful. I often find myself in situations where it is required of me to perform superhuman feats with my teeth alone, such as hanging from a cliff, or opening a can of processed meat. Now that I have been drinking tea for so long, I imagine I shall now be able to deflect bullets and destroy rocks and stuff with my superhuman gnashers.

Tea increases metabolism
How many times have you found yourself rushing to catch a bus, or to a meeting that you are ten minutes late for, only to find yourself thinking “I wish I had a faster metabolism so I could move at speeds close to that of light”. I know I have. Anyway, I don’t know if that’s exactly what a faster metabolism means, but I figure I’m going to keep drinking tea for years to come in the hope that I will one day be able to run round the whole world in the time it takes for sugar to explode. Or something else that probably takes a long, long time.

It all started on a Saturday. Well, I say it “started”. It didn’t exactly start, so much as explode into existence in a shower of fiery sparks, shrapnel and indigo hued smoke which made my eyes bleed.

“What exactly exploded into existence?”, you may ask. Furthermore, you may also ask, where did this explosion occur? Well, for the purposes of futile suspense, I shall spend a couple of sentences telling you that this explosion occured in my living room, about three metres from my television, roughly two feet from the door and more-or-less one yard from my sofa. So yes, in all respects, this explosion was contained firmly within the boundaries of my living room, except that during the course of the explosion, some of these boundaries chose, mostly due to reasons outwith their control (such as an impending explosion) to suddenly be many tens of metres away in my neighbours gardens.

So anyway, now that I have explained the situation and the suspense (futile though it may be) has been built, like some shoddy outhouse which will most likely collapse upon the first unfortunate soul who ventures within, I can tell you that it was an entirely new Universe which exploded into existence on this fateful Saturday.

Now, for most people, this would be an important event. Momentous, even. Stupendous. But no. Not really. I was unphased.

The Universe, as is commonly believed, is a big thing, mostly incomprehensible and full of confusing elements like pastry, Satan worshippers and trumpets. So it’s fair to say that it’s not something that most people will have to deal with on a daily basis. They don’t, it is reasonable to believe, wake up every morning and think to themselves “Oh my! I seem to find myself contained, once more, within a Universe. What are the chances!” before continuing downstairs to feast upon cornflakes and gaze longingly at whatever banal breakfast trite the television is birthing forth. No, the average person will most likely live their entire lives never even giving the fact the the Universe actually exists a single moment’s thought. Although they will watch quite a lot of morning television and eat a lot of cornflakes. If a Univsere suddenly appeared right in front of them, more than just a gasp would issue forth from their mouths.

Well, I have a different outlook on life, I do enjoy marvelling at the Universe and cooing over its many intruiging features, such as time and space which I consider to be vastly underrated. So, to find a new one being birthed forth suddenly in my home wasn’t quite as surprising as it should have been, myself being aware of the existence of Universes, at least in the singular sense. After the initial explosion, which destroyed most of my house, the Universe seemed to stabilise into a pulsating sphere roughly one meter across and hovered there, silently, like a mad bastard orb.

It seemed to me that the formation of a Universe must be a fairly rare occurence as I couldn’t recall ever having seen something of this sort happen before. I scratched my head and thought a little. I figured I had time to spare, staring at this marvel of creation in my battered abode, as the few tasks I had planned for that day could well be thought of as cancelled, as the items that those taks would require (namely one sofa and one television set) had since been obliterated by the cosmic oddity that was, peering closer, actually starting to wobble and bob around the place. Almost inquisitively, it sniffed at a few pieces of charred plasterboard a few inches from my feet.

Well, I imagine it would have been sniffing if it had possessed a nose. Universes, you’d think, wouldn’t have a need to smell anything, as anything worth smelling would be contained firmly inside them. It’s like if I asked you what your spleen smelled like. You wouldn’t know. In fact, you probably wouldn’t care. “And why not?” I ask. What sort of gentleman in this day and age knows not what his spleen smells like?

Oddly, while these thoughts raced around my head, I noticed that this universe did have a nose. It had eyes too. And a mouth! Good lord, the thing was alive. Or at least as alive as anything with a face can be. It spoke:

“Hello. Who are you?”
“I’m Howard Nebulator. Who are you?”. It was a silly question to ask a Universe. I felt quite foolish for having asked it. Nonetheless, I got a reply,
“I am The Universe”, the Universe rumbled. “Where am I?”
“You’re in my living room. Or at least what’s left of it”
“Oh my, I’m terribly sorry”, the Universe commented. “I appear to have made some sort of terrible mistake. Please forgive me. Please? I didn’t mean it, I…”. A slight tremble of the lower lip.

The Universe looked sad. I could see that it had a troubled expression now that I realised it posessed a face. A face quite possibly moulded from the creases, ripples, bends and twists in the fabric of whatever spatial dimensions were contained inside, textured with billions of galaxies, trillions of stars and with quite a prominent spot on its nose that could well have been the result of quadrillions of years of work by an advanced enterpreunistic space-faring species, keen to discover what lay at the reaches of their domain, spending aeons, generations building devices and machines to probe the limits of their existence only to find out, after the toils of eternity that the first thing peering back at them was an explosion-battered shabby beige couch.

“What mistake is this then?”, I asked the gloomy looking Universe. I thought I saw a tear form at the corner of its star speckled eye.
“Well, what you saw just then - that explosion…”. A moment’s pause.
“Yes” I said, “Do continue”
“Well, that was my Big Bang”
“Was it? Well, it was quite something! It destroyed my house”. I tried to sound enthusiastic but, due to the recent destruction of my property and the fact that, yes, all things considered, it wasn’t really all that big of a bang, it came out with something of a sarcastic tone.
“It was NOTHING!”, it screamed. I jumped back slightly, this was quite a shift in mood for the sprightly little chap.
“Hey, don’t fret. I bet loads of Universes don’t get their big break, and end up forming all sorts of places. A garage forecourt, maybe? A branch of Woolworths. Swindon”
“But all the other Universes, they get all the perks. Bloody bastards. They won’t stop rubbing it in, you know. ‘Look at Little Universe, shaped like a mint, or something’. What shape are mints? I don’t know!”. The Universe was rambling on a little bit, and sadness had faded only to be replaced with a look of mild insanity.
“I feel used and wasted”, the Universe complained. “Can I stay with you for a while? I won’t get in the way”
“Well, I don’t really think… Y’see…”, I couldn’t think of a good reason why the Universe couldn’t stay. It seemed nice enough, if not a little miserable and prone to mood swings.

Why not indeed? I no longer had a fully functional house (a fully functional house being defined as one which you can live in without wondering daily whether people are going to randomly wander through the 25 foot wide gaping hole that’s been ripped into the front of it due to the sudden and unfortunate expansion of a clinically depressed Universe.) but I felt this was pig piffle compared to the potentially fun and slightly interesting situations I might find myself in now that I was friends (on first name terms) with a Universe.

“You can have the spare room upstairs. If it’s still intact”, I told the celestial blob. I wondered if Universes actually needed sleep and proceeded through to the kitchen to get a cup of tea, via the gaping void in the living room wall. Saturday continued, as Saturdays do. The Universe plodded along behind me, making sniffling noises and wiping its snotty nose on an arm composed from uncountable galaxies and ripped space-time fabric.

Possibly coming soon - Part 2 of this disturbing saga. Stay tuned!

A man walks into a doctors waiting room, he goes up to the receptionist and says “I would like to see the doctor”. The receptionist says “I’m sorry, you can’t see the doctor. He’s an invisible man”. “Okay”, the man says “Tell him I can’t see him”. Then the doctor comes out of his office and starts doing crazy shit like moving pencils and chairs around and everyone thinks it’s a ghost because he’s invisible and no-one can see him. Everyone in the crowded waiting room tries to rush for the exit. In the ensuing panic, three people are killed.

A man walks into a laundrette and puts some clothes into a washing machine. Because of some faulty wiring, the machine explodes and takes half his face off.

A Scotsman, and Englishman and an Irishman are in a library. The Scotsman is really loud and keeps farting. The Englishman asks why he keeps doing this. The Scotsman replies, and screams “I don’t know. I don’t know why I keep screaming and farting. I can’t help it. It terrifies me. I can’t sleep at night.” Meanwhile, the Irishman lives up to his stereotype and sits in the corner
getting pissed.

A nun and a rabbi are in a pub. For some reason the rabbi falls over. He eventually gets up again. The nun looks at him, confused. Then she falls over and is all like “What the hell’s going on?”. Then the rabbi falls over again. He exclaims “What’s happening? Is there something wrong with the gravity in here?”. Then for no apparent reason, the pub explodes.

Three birds are sitting in a tree. One of the birds explodes for no apparent reason. One of the other birds gets caught up in the flames and catches on fire. The third bird just sits and stares at this gory scene, dumbfounded. Years later, he’ll have flashbacks. His life will never be the same again.

Q: What’s the difference between a rugby team and the cast of Eastenders?
A: Lots and lots of things. I dont think the cast of Eastenders could play rugby, anyway.

Based on the not-terribly-exciting BBC Consumer help programme thing, where Nicky Campbell shouts at people who make washing machines and kitchens and tells them it’s really “Just not good enough”. Enjoy… If you can.

“Shit! Get it out, get it out!”, he squealed. “They’re about to switch live to us.”
Nicky Campbell’s day had not been going well. His coffee had been too hot in the morning, his bagel had burst all over his new gay pink shirt in the afternoon and now this. Some fucker had set him on fire seconds before the cameras were due to go live.

“I’ll fucking murder whoever did this. I swear”, he screamed as the red light blinked on. Nicky was live on the BBC. Presenter of “Watchdog” and being of Scotness, he was used to this kind of shit. He’d grown up on the streets of Glasgow, or at least he thought he had - he hadn’t checked recently - where being set on fire was something you just had to get used to. The corridors of the BBC were no safer. Acts of random arson were commonplace. You brought three changes of clothes to work every day. At least one set would be burnt to fuck come home-time.

“Nicholas! You little shit! Are you traipsing fire int’a the living room again?”, his father would have bellowed. “Yes pa. Sorry pa, won’t happen again, pa.”

Water sprayed into his face, his chest, two of his shoulders and his crotch, extinguishing the blaze. He spoke his lines, presented with years of practice through the fine mist that had now formed around him. “Welcome to Watchdog. The show where you, the consumer, have…”, he stopped mid sentence. He raised his eyebrows, listening. The crew were staring at something behind him. He turned slowly to see what the rustling, moving noise was behind him. “Oh Christ, no…”

Julia Bradbury was standing on the desk, naked, swinging her pendulous breasts in full view of Camera 2 while laughing softly to herself. Nicky hung his head and begun to cry.

It came to my attention recently that I’ve been missing my front door for a good few weeks now. I only noticed this apparent loss of frontal portal device when I came down the stairs one day to find the postman sitting in my kitchen enjoying a cup of tea. I assume he was enjoying it as he would take a good, long sip and after a moments contemplation would let out a long sigh. This sip-sighing is what initially caused me to enter the kitchen as my routine normally requires me to first enter the living room where a slice of last nights pizza may have congealed and be ready for eating. The noise from the kitchen caused my detour.”Hello. Why are you in my kitchen drinking my tea, and why is that over there?”. I pointed to the toaster. I knew very well why the toaster was there. I had placed it there several months before when I had purchased it from Currys. I simply wanted to test the postman. He looked at me, as a teacher may look at a simpleton. “Your front door has been missing now”, another sip, another sigh. Then he continued, “for about three weeks now. Ive just been throwing the mail onto your carpet, and I thought you would have noticed, but apparently, you haven’t”. He emphasised those last words.

“Thats all very well” I said, “But why are you in my kitchen?”.

“I came in to tell you that your door is missing”. He continued sipping his tea. A sigh, and then “I’d advise you to get it fixed. You may find less reputable characters than me sitting here of a morning in the future”. He had finished his tea, and so got up and walked out of the door and down the stairs.

I pondered upon this for a while. Perhaps leaving the door as it was would enable me to meet other interesting people. I walked over to the kettle and switched it on for my first cup of tea of the day.

I was walking along the street the other day and, all of a sudden, I realised what it was that had been missing from my life all these years. Brightly coloured felt-tip pens. All the pens I owned (and there were but three or four of them) were fairly drab. Browns and dull greens, certainly not the most inspiring of colours. So I went out and bought some proper pens. Rainbow colours. Colours which inspired joy. From that day onwards, my life was, quite frankly, brilliant

Star Wars

“I’m having a big fucking party at my place” Screamed Obi-Wan through the letterbox. “What are all you fuckers doing just sitting around? I can see you through the shitting bleeding window!”
Luke got up from the sofa and shuffled towards the front door where he could see Obi-Wan’s fingers holding the letterbox open.
“Jesus christ, man”,said Luke “It’s just me, Dad and Chewie here, we’re having a quiet night in with a couple of pizzas and some beers.”
“What, with fucking Darth?”, asked Obi-Wan, quite loudly
“Yeah, Darth’s here”
“Darth fucking Vader?”
“Yes, Obi, Darth Vader”
“The fucking Darth Vader?”
“Jesus, Obi, yeah, Darth Vader’s here. He’s family, you know?”
“Darth fucking shitting bleeding Vader?”
“Oh for fuck’s sake Obi, piss off”
Obi-wan muttered something under his breath and shuffled around outside for a few minutes in the light of the darkening evening sky. Presently, he returned to the letterbox.
“What are you fuckers doing then? Are you watching a DVD? Without me? Is that fucking ‘Die Hard I can hear?’ Why wasn’t I invited? I love Die Hard”, obfusticaded Obi-Wan, now appearing rather angry and a bit pissed.
“Yeah Obi”, countered Luke, “We’re watching Die Hard and we didn’t invite you because you shout constantly all the way through any movie”
“I do not”, objected Obi-Wan
“Of course you do, you great fucking bastard”, screamed Darth from the living room in his deep breathey voice, “When we went to watch ‘Love Actually’, you kept calling colin Firth a ‘Crazy Fucking Fuck’ and made thrusting hip movements whenever a pair of tits were on screen”
“Alright, you complete bastards. But you’re missing my party, which is going to be fucking sweet, you know. It’s going to be shitting bleeding crazy ass fun. And now you’re not invited”
“Goodnight Obi”, Luke said, snapping the letterbox shut on Obi-Wan’s fingers causing him to fall backwards suddenly. The swearing began again and didn’t stop for another fifteen minutes.

Harry Potter

“Look out Harry!” shouted Hermione, pointing towards the darkness of the hallway. Suddenly, and without warning, and with a big farting windy noise, Ron burst into the scene, stumbling and shouting “Uuurms! Ruuurms! I’ll fight you! I’ll fight you all”
“Oh Ron!”, sprouted Harry, “Have you been drinking again?”
“No. Non no noon!”, milked Ron, “I’ve been pouring vinegar into my eyes, because I wanted to see what happens when someone pours vinegar into their eyes”
“Oh Ron, you are a stupid fucker”, rinsed Hermione “we can’t leave you alone for even a few minutes without you doing something stupid, like filling your ears with acid or hammering rusty
spoons through your arm”.
“I CAN’T FUCKING HELP IT”, attacked Ron, now delerious from the stinging pain in his eyes, “I’m crazy. I’m wrong in the head. I was born into a rusty pan.”
“Oh, Ron! You are a card!” screamed Harry. Hermione interrupted, “Here, push this into your face, it’ll make you feel better”
“What the fuck is it? What the fuck?” purpled Ron, “I can’t fucking see, you crazy bitch. I just poured vinegar in my eyes”
“It’s something to ease the pain. Go on, try it”
Ron grabbed at the thing in Hermiones hand. It was cool and damp, like a bear that’s been sitting in a bath of cold vodka for about 20 minutes. Ron smashed it into his face. “Aaaargh! Jesus! What the fuck?”. He screamed in pain.
“What the hell, Ron? It’s just a damp flannel”, spouted Hermione.
“Shit! It’s a bear soaked in vodka!” screamed Ron intermittently, now passing in and out of
conciousness due to the huge amount of pain his face was soaking up.
“No it’s not, it’s just water”
“Aaaauugghwww! Aaaughg!” continued Ron, before passing out in a heap on the floor.