Sixteen Alligators and a Trebuchet
Page 11
Harrods
to: Trevor Mcinsley
Dear Wing Commander Micinsley
Thank you for your email.
After looking into your query I have been advised that Harrods has never sold this product.
I hope we can be of service to you in the future.
Kind regards
[The King of Harrods]
Trevor Mcinsley
to: Harrods
Sorry, was this email meant for me? My name is Mcinsley. In fact the only information I can find for ‘Micinsley’ online is: ‘Lord Tosh Alexander Micinsley Greyline the Third, a.k.a. ‘Tosh’ - Commoner - Devils Chipmunk’ ...which appears to be from some manner of anime fan fiction. Was this the intended recipient?
Also I have no idea where you got Wing Commander from. Is it possible you confused me with someone else?
If you can please confirm the product I was enquiring about I can make sure this response was not in error. Thanks.
Harrods
to: Trevor Mcinsley
Dear Mr Mcinsley
My apologies for the incorrect spelling of your name. Wing Commander was given as the title on the original email. The original request was in reference as to whether Harrods has ever sold leopard semen.
I hope this clarifies the matter and please let me know if this has indeed been sent to you in error.
Kind regards
[The King of Harrods]
Trevor Mcinsley
to: Harrods
Oh right. I didn’t even notice the title option on the form. Clearly the default must have been Wing Commander. That seems a bit of a strange decision in regards to web design if you don’t mind my saying so.
Hmm... I was actually enquiring about ‘leopard salmon’ a rare variety of the fish so called for their spotted bodies. They were pretty popular back in Victorian times but are rather hard to come by nowadays. I’m not sure if the typo was mine or if the form played up. Sorry for the confusion.
If anywhere is likely to still sell them it is probably Harrods. Do you sell leopard semen?
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Frankly I am just in awe of my own powers of trolling sometimes. If only they could be put towards purposeful use...
Still, given that none of this was planned out from the first email and entirely improvised I have concluded that I must be a genius. Unfortunately the ‘HATS to HUBRIS’ edition of my encyclopaedia set is still missing...
Trevor Mcinsley
to: Procter and Gamble
I have either noticed a typo on the Head and Shoulder’s ingredients or you have some really bizarre chemists working for you. The problem ingredient is...
Well, just tell me if you notice any issues here: butylphenyl methylpropional, benzyl salicylate, leopard semen, propylene glycol.
What exactly is going on?
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Leopard semen jokes are much like the substance itself... you’re not sure exactly when it is going to happen but you know it’s coming...
Trevor Mcinsley
to: Tesco
I work a lot with leopards and hence I need some especially absorbent tissue paper. Which of the following would you recommend for leopard related spillages (semen mostly)?
Tesco Everyday Value Kitchen Towel
Tesco Kitchen Towel
Thanks.
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You know what the really scary thing is? It is Sunday. Tomorrow I am going to wake up to find a half dozen emails in my inbox about fucking leopard semen. Oh it’s fine for you, they’ll already have been pasted in or disregarded by now but I still have all that to come. No, I will not sink to the obvious leopard semen pun there.
...
...
...I wasn’t wrong.
Tesco
to: Trevor Mcinsley
CENSORED
...you have mentioned in your email that you require the kitchen towel mostly for the cleaning up of fluids from the leopards you work with. It would mostly depend upon how viscous the fluids are, and of course, how much you need to clean up in one go...
CENSORED
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Probably says something regarding the specificity of their response that I actually felt inclined to censor it. There were just far too many references to ‘viscosity’ and the ‘thickness’ of the fluids for my taste. Shame on you Tesco...
Trevor Mcinsley
to: The Maasai
I have heard that the Maasai can track a leopard just from the smell of its semen. Is this true? Did you know that Pepsi over here doesn’t contain leopard semen!? How crazy is that!
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Welcome to the internet, centuries old civilisation. I’m so sorry...
Trevor Mcinsley
to: The People’s Republic of China - Australian Visa Application Centre
G’day mate, I need a visa. My details follow:
Name: Trevor Mcinsley
Job Title: Leopard Stimulator
That is all.
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Googling ‘contact the peoples republic of china’ is a pretty weird experience to be honest. On that subject...
The phrase ‘leopard semen’ appears only a hundred odd times on google. I have already used it a third of that. Unfortunately in researching this little fact I stumbled upon an ‘erotic furry story’ and suddenly I am concerned about what I am writing. Don’t get me wrong it is not yet on a par with...
“Oh god yes!” The leopard gasped, and then very hastily crossed his legs tighter to hide a prominent something. In a dress it was very difficult to do so. A quick glance around reassured him that no one was watching, much to his relief.
...but it’s getting there disturbingly quickly. Just in case you were unclear that’s a story about cross-dressing leopards meeting in a restaurant. It’s pretty much the most insane thing I have ever seen.
“Check please,” the tiger called to the passing waiter. Not because he was uncomfortable, but because the small meal was done.
You don’t get that level of writing with Tolstoy... though his beard was big enough to pass as a furry. Anyway, the problem I was having is that I kept trying to end this section on something genuinely amusing and then invariably ended up writing more and more stuff.
I wrote to a sperm bank, an alpaca farm and a tribe of Nomadic Africans and nothing was enough for me to realise... enough was probably enough. Then I found some furries. Now I feel vaguely unwell (you’ll note that I didn’t quote the line which actually had the ‘leopard semen’ reference in it).
DO NOT GOOGLE IT.
Furries are a bit like that girl from the Exorcist... it doesn’t matter what you are searching for online, eventually you will find her... and it is always terrifying. I’m pretty desensitised to just about everything, indeed before now I have found myself casually reading through the comments on pictures from Japanese tentacle rape anime just to work out what the appeal is... but when it comes to hardcore furries. Fucking hell...
Basically what I am saying here is we should send furries in to mediate all major world conflicts. No one is going to feel up for fighting after watching a giant squirrel with a man’s head fucking a girl dressed as an acorn...
Trevor Mcinsley Blows a Funny Fuse
For a little while the entire content of this final page was simply one line of bright red text that read:
END ON SOMETHING FUNNY NOT ABOUT FUCKING LEOPARDS
...such is the way I note down thoughts and ideas as I go along. However by this point I was a little bit... well, you know that episode of South Park where Cartman ‘blows a funny fuse’? Yeah that. Perhaps it’s just that I am easily entertained but after three days straight of sending out stupid emails and reading through replies... nothing was funny anymore.
When I woke up, checked my email and read ‘We can confirm that Pepsi max does not contain leopard semen.’ I think I laughed for about five minutes straight. I really didn’t expect them to reply. Again it might just be me... but I lau
gh pretty much every time I read it and I must have read it a hundred times. So when I skimmed over it and nothing happened I knew something was wrong.
Naturally I turned to the usual folk remedies: tea, sandwiches and hardcore pornography (another book title waiting to happen) but alas nothing helped. Then I realised I had been awake for over 36 hours and hadn’t moved from my computer chair for the majority of them...
Anyway I couldn’t think of anything to write so I just decided to recap everything in the book... and then send it to the people who run Hyde Park. Well how do you end books?
Trevor Mcinsley
To: The Royal Parks
We are currently organising a public event and thought Hyde Park would be the best possible location for it. It is a kind of variety show which harks back to the days of old when public spaces were used for everything from circuses to public executions.
Unfortunately today it seems the regulations are a lot stricter and things like axe wielding clowns are completely out of the question. Therefore if you could let me know if there are likely to be any problems with our proposed show that would be great.
The centre piece of the exhibition will be a fifty foot tall trebuchet capable of launching projectiles a third of the way across the park. Do you think this will be an issue? At all times this will be staffed by professional trebuchet men and we are hoping to use it to launch the Red Arrows parachute team into the air for the finale of the event.
Another feature is a cage full of alligators. In fact it is an alligator petting zoo. The animals have been specially trained not to bite by the world’s foremost alligator expert in a bid to prove to the public that they are very misunderstood creatures and that we should not fear them. He is hoping to introduce them into the Yorkshire Moors later in the year.
We also have fifty stalls providing food from around the world... mostly sausages though it seems. Strange that. I suspect the Germans are responsible.
Then we have a stall from the Metropolitan Police who have set up a bit of a judicial punishment system for email scammers. The culprits are put in stocks and the public are invited to throw out of date spam at them - one tin for every hundred emails they sent out. The event is sponsored by the Hormel Foods Corporation... who recently discovered a warehouse full of spam they had ‘forgotten about’ with produce dating back to the 1950s. So frankly they are glad to be getting rid of the stuff.
Erm... what else? Oh yes. We have a leopard. Named Steve. Like the alligators he has been trained not to murder things but he does get a little... frisky. Last time we used him in a show the entire front row of the crowd had to wear waterproof ponchos. Yeah... it was pretty unpleasant. Anyway he’ll be walking about the park greeting people.
We will have the finest entertainment available throughout the event with some of the best shows on TV being in attendance. Namely:
‘People Falling off Big Red Balls’
‘Pressing a Button to Win Money’
‘Can’t Sing, Will Try Anyway’
‘Reading Numbers from Boxes to Win Money’
‘More People Falling off Big Red Balls’
‘GOLF!’
‘Extreme Table Tennis’
...the list goes on.
We have a group from The Internet who will be demonstrating their, not at all retarded, new policies regarding cookies to the public. Basically they will be handing out chocolate chip cookies to people and halfway through eating them they will be given a form to fill in which says ‘I consent to eating this cookie’. If they do not give consent the cookie will be stolen from them by a hawk. I understand they are planning on trialling this system with all food and drinks in the future because, and I quote, ‘it is just better’.
We also have a child from America who will be coming over to make sure no one swears during the event. He’s a bit of a twat though so we may drop him.
So it should be pretty good all in all. Let me know if you think anything might pose a problem otherwise we’ll get set up in the park as soon as possible.
Thanks.
Trevor Mcinsley.
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What? That’s a normal way to finish a book right? Last time I ended with a dedication to Brian Blessed so this doesn’t seem overly out of place.
Anyway... contents follow. Yes, yes a contents section in a 100 page book does seem silly and no I am not one of these people who writes a couple twenty page stories, sticks them online and then starts talking like Jane Austen... I know this stuff is nonsensical drivel. Oh and the contents section is interactive... because books are magic nowadays. See... drivel.
Contents
Sixteen Alligators and a Trebuchet
Trevor Mcinsley: Fastest Gun in the West
Spamming Scamming Stammering Scammers
Trevor Mcinsley: Still the Fastest Gun in the West
Cumberland, Lancashire, Braunschweiger...
Rage, Rage Against the Dying of the Light...
299 Characters Remaining
Trevor Mcinsley Blows a Funny Fuse
Möbius Contents
You know how some stand-up comedians will deliver devastatingly funny material without even breaking a smile? Yeah... that’s not me. I laugh nonstop whilst writing this stuff, reading it back, editing it... frankly it makes typing rather difficult at times.
Anyway, the point is... I find this kind of stuff funny. I cannot comment for others but if you too enjoyed it then keep a look out for my other things. Trevor Mcinsley Moments is available on Amazon right now (did I mention that yet?) and given its inordinate length you can download about 35 pages scot-free as a preview. Most bookshops would kick you out before you got that far in...
In Trevor Mcinsley Moments I get in touch with god (or his representatives on Earth at least), the Bank of England, several major international companies over remarkably petty issues and find a cult that will evidently reply to every email you send them no matter how bizarre, implausible or stupid they may be. I mean in one I said I was abducted by gypsies with a sugar fixation...
Yeah... so take a look at that. Oh and at some point in time I will have a proper novel coming out which I describe as ‘comedy-sci-fi-fantasy’... a genre I am determined to get recognised by Amazon. Before that though you can expect more stupid emails under increasingly stupid book titles to be released from time to time. If you have enjoyed this book, or indeed hated it, please head over to Amazon and leave me a review. As an incentive I shall be sending out chocolate buttons and mail bombs (respectively) to reviewers.
You can also visit my website where I write yet more nonsense on a blog and sign up to get information when new titles are released. Details follow:
Email: trevor@mcinsley.com
Web: mcinsley.com
Once again I shall endeavour to respond to all emails but I reserve the right to publish any and all communication in future books. Basically if you once killed a prostitute in a knife fight probably best that you keep it to yourself...
Copyright © 2013 by Trevor Mcinsley. All rights reserved... so on, etc.
‘Sixteen Alligators and a Trebuchet’ Copyright © Trevor Mcinsley (just in case I decide to turn it into a film one day). The concept of firing an alligator out of a trebuchet is the sole property of Trevor Mcinsley. If you want to fire an alligator out of a trebuchet please seek my permission first. Crocodiles are ok though.
Trebuchet cover art used under a Creative Commons licence. Original image is the property of ‘misterstorey’ and available here:
www.flickr.com/80682694@N05/7600910700
Although, frankly, Warwick castle commissioned the thing and it was designed by Dr Peter Vemming and built by Carpenter Oak and Woodland Ltd in Wiltshire (yeah I do my research)... so I think they should get more credit than a photographer who just happened to catch a snap of the thing at the optimum angle for my purposes. As it is I probably put more effort into tracing the thing as a vector than the photographer did in hitting the shutter. In the future, when photogr
aphing twenty tonne trebuchets on a bright day, I would recommend a lower ISO to cut down on the graininess. Sorry... copyright law baffles me. Thanks for the photo.
The unsuspecting alligator (crocodile actually) is from some stock site or other. Colour purple inspired by a grape. This book has been brought to you by the letter R and the number 5.
Trevor Mcinsley
to: Sesame Street
Would you like to feature my book on your programme? I only attempt to contact Vladimir Putin on one occasion and the word ‘semen’ appears just 48 times in total. This is a mere 0.001% of the book and therefore statistically negligible, so this should not be an issue. Besides, kids need to learn sometime and what better means of guiding them through it step by step than with a leopard and a can of Pepsi Max?
I am thinking Big Bird or that terrifying guy that lives in the dustbin and represents what happens if you drink too much and accept strange white powder from strangers could read it out. All of it.