//=time() ?>
In 1897 the popular children’s game of marbles became a cause of controversy when campaigners seeking to encourage better interspecies relations argued that the practice of pulling wings off fairies & encasing them in glass to pilot marbles could be seen as somewhat undiplomatic.
1898 saw misreports in newspapers when journalists wrote:
“Mrs Gruel of Swansea was placed in an hypnotic coma & then devoured by hordes of dolls using ladders to scale the helpless woman.”
Dolls did not however eat the lady.
Lacking stomachs, they merely chewed her to the bone.
In 1902 the public thronged to
Dr Mimir's Mimetic Magic
performances, in the hope of avoiding disastrous futures by practising preventriliquism, a process involving hanging a dummy, sacrificing 1 of its eyes into a well, then having the doll read the entrails of audience members.
In 1921 archaeologists unearthed the mummified remains of Merfetiti,
Queen of the Nile, known in legend as
‘She of the Fertile Crescent’.
Merfetiti was one of the foremost subaquatic rulers of Egypt’s flood plains, who drowned the earlier Pod worshiping Ptotatolobotomy Dynasty.
Premature hairloss has been a concern for masculine homosapiens but this is nothing to the angst felt by those narcissistic devilish entities who find themselves suffering from male-pattern horn-loss.
Fortunately this became less of an issue after the invention of the Hell Toupee
The wise shall always remember the old saying,
“Not all Green Giants are jolly.”
Long before the advent of tinned peas & sweetcorn, murderous leafy Etins roamed the land.
Eternally hungering, they delighted in capturing & devouring their favourite prey, “human beans”.
In 1903 Ben Ding, an amputee suffering from Phantom Limb Syndrome, sought help from noted faith healer Rev O’lver, who diagnosed a case of ghost possession & promptly began an exorcism.
The Reverend successfully banished the phantom leg but left Ben feeling extremely unstable.
Tragedy struck Athens from a great height in 1931 when round-the-world aerocyclist Icarus Dickerydock nearly finished his attempt to double-circumnavigate the globe.
He was 16ft away from completing a 2nd loop when he suffered a puncture & fell to his death while changing a tyre.
In 1897 there was concern over a drastic increase in sales of beer, wine & spirits across Britain, with fears this may cause rumbustious alcoholism & slubbering drunkenness.
Investigations into the phenomenon concluded it was due to the latest advertising campaign by Teetotallers
In 1959 the British public was gripped by fear after rumours in newspapers that civil service departments had been infiltrated by double-agents under the control of the exoskeletal government of Crustasia.
These concerns were dismissed as ridiculous by governmental spokespersons.