From the Author of the Internationally Bestselling Books – Red Herrings & White Elephants, Shaggy Dogs, Pop Goes the Weasel, What Caesar did for My Salad & They Laughed at Galileo
Revenge is a Cheap Jaguar
Early one morning a teenage garage mechanic in Godalming, Surrey was looking through his local paper for a cheap second hand car and feasted his eye upon one small advert that puzzled him. ‘Jaguar XK8 For Sale, 2 years old, perfect condition, leather interior and Sat Nav – only, only £200.’
Believing it to be a misprint that should have read at least £20,000 he moved onto to other adverts but his attention kept drifting back to the Jaguar until he finally made up his mind to telephone the number included.
An elegant sounding lady answered and confirmed he was the first caller and that the car was indeed only £200.
Still puzzled he drove to the address she gave and found himself at a large country house with landscaped gardens, tennis courts and a pool.
Outside the garage was a shiny black Jaguar XK8 being polished by the gardener. The V8 engine purred and the car was in mint condition so on checking the price again the mechanic quickly handed over £200 and promptly received the keys and log book.
He couldn’t believe his luck but had to ask, ‘why are you selling the car so cheaply, surely you must know it is worth much more?’ The lady hesitated and then decided no harm could be done if she explained the story.
‘A few years ago,’ she told him, ‘I met the perfect man. He was tall, attractive and owned a very successful publishing business. We got married, moved into this house and everything was perfect for 3 years. Then, he employed a beautiful, young sexy PR executive and before I knew it they were having an affair.
I found out about a month ago and when I confronted him he admitted everything, packed his bags and left, just like that. Then, last week, I received a letter from his lawyer confirming I could keep the house and all the money and, as long as he could keep his business, he was happy to rebuild his personal life with his new partner but there was one condition.
As he didn’t want to come back to the house and face me I was told I had to sell his Jaguar, keep half the money and forward the balance onto him to use as a deposit for a new car, so that is exactly what I am doing.’
Star Heckler
A story has circulated among music fans since the early 1970’s of rock concert performed by the American Band Grand Funk Railroad during which, after a featured guitar solo, a member of the audience started booing loudly.
This was ignored for a short while until a member of the band finally took the microphone and announced ‘The punk booing in the front row, if you think you can do any better come up and show us.’
The crowd were stunned to see Eric Clapton leave his seat and join the band on stage. This story has been repeated and believed for over thirty-years, and may in fact be true. But it is hard to believe Clapton, respectful as he is to other musicians, would ever have jeered another guitarist.
Unless, of course, it was pre arranged and the band had already invited Clapton to play. That would make a better story.
There are several other tales of a famous and talented person being unrecognised and yet challenged.
A story in the North East of England during the 1980’s circulated of a group of young men challenging another to a race along the seafront at Newcastle, after an evenings drinking in the town.
The second group readily accepted the challenge and put forward their best runner, the current reigning Olympic Champion and world mile record holder Steve Cram.
The world of comedy has its own stories too. One story is told by the victim himself, one of the many little known comedians on the US circuit.
He claimed that one night he was delivering his own routine, when someone in the audience started heckling him. He traded some banter with the stranger but soon ran out of material and witty responses.
So instead he resorted to the old fall back response — ‘Hey, you think you can do better?’ Apparently the heckler turned out to be Robin Williams.
Another tells the story of American comedian Bill Cosby, although sometimes Groucho Marx is the subject. One Sunday morning the comedian is mowing the grass at the front of his large house on a wealthy private residential estate.
A neighbour, unaware of his celebrity, passes by and asks how much the lady of the house pays him for mowing the lawn. ’Nothing,’ replies the comedian, ‘but she does let me sleep with her every night.’
Moon the Loon
Keith Moon, late drummer of The Who, died in 1978 and left behind a string of Urban Legends as a result of his erratic and comical behaviour.
Largely under the influence of drugs Moon is said to have blown up his drum kit on stage, allegedly damaging guitarist Pete Townsend’s hearing in the process and then befriended a tramp in Soho before checking him into London’s Hilton Hotel and continued drinking with him until the early hours.
Moon apparently then forgot all about the tramp, until the hotel phoned his record label over two weeks later to ask what they were supposed to do with the old man and who was paying the bill. The record label picked up the tab.
Despite being regarded by many as the finest drummer of his generation, Moon’s good-natured disruptions lead to his band mates barring him from the studio when the vocal parts were being recorded.
One legend suggests that at the end of the recording of ‘Happy Jack’ Pete Townsend can be heard shouting ‘I see ya’ in the background as he spots Moon sneaking in to let off fireworks.
Whether any of these legends are true or not only those close to the band would know. But the one that is perhaps the most famous Rock Urban Legend of all time is definitely not true.
According to author Steve Grantley (The Who by Numbers) Keith Moon definitely did not drive his Rolls Royce into the swimming pool either at his home, as is sometimes suggested, or at the Holiday Inn in Flint, Michigan, where it is also reported to have happened during the drummer’s twenty first birthday party.
‘What he did do though,’ says Grantley, ‘is reverse it by accident into his garden pond one morning and then had to ask the AA to tow it back out for him.’
This would come as a surprise to English band Oasis, however, have perpetuated the myth by featuring a photograph of a Rolls Royce submerged in the pool on the front of their 1997 album ‘Be Here Now’ and Top Gear television presenter Jeremy Clarkson opened his local Chipping Norton Lido by driving a Rolls Royce Silver Shadow into the water in June 2005 as part of a TV stunt organised by the James Bond stunt team Bickers.
Other rock and roll legends include the time Peter Grant, charismatic manager of Led Zeppelin, was checking out of a hotel in America one day and was reeling off $100 dollar bills from a huge roll of cash to pay for the damage his band and entourage had caused during their stay.
Nervously, the hotel clerk asked, ‘excuse me Mr Grant, but what is it like to actually through a television out of the window.’ Grant looked down at the lad and after a short pause peeled off another $300 and replied, ‘here you are son, have one on us.’
Hitler’s Testicles
It has been the subject of great hilarity since the 1950’s; at least it has amongst schoolboys. And the big question is, did Adolph Hitler have one or two testicles?
This wartime legend appeared to have started with a song popularised by British Soldiers before being passed down to their children after the war and is sung along to the tune of Colonel Bogey.
Hitler, has only got one ball,
The other, is in the Albert Hall,
His mother, the dirty bugger,
Cut it off when he was small.
She tied it, up on a conker tree,
The wind came, and blew it out to sea,
The fishes, took out their dishes,
And had scallops and bollocks for tea.
.
There has been much pondering of the big question for the last fifty years and during the 1970’s, after the Russians made Hitler’s autopsy public, there was a general belief that the report had been doctored as a result of the British propaganda song, designed to boost moral within the ranks whilst publicly humiliating Hitler, a vain and sensitive man, in the hope of sending the madman even madder.
But there are also records proving Hitler was wounded in action in 1916, during the First World War at the Battle of the Somme and had suffered an injury to the groin. It is further recorded that shortly afterwards, during a Venereal Disease examination, Hitler’s company commander noted that the soldier had ‘only one testicle.’
So it would appear to be true and many historians now accept the Red Army’s autopsy report that included the line, ‘The left testicle could not be found either in the scrotum or on the spermatic cord inside the inguinal canal, or in the small pelvis.’
So I am glad we have cleared that up. Adolph Hitler was monorchid after all but whether his mother really cut it off and hung it in a conker tree we can only speculate.
Seems a little harsh though doesn’t it. – Albert Jack
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