Tuesday 30 July 2019

Nature vs Nature: Part II of a Trilogy in Four Parts.



I'm back to the old hoary chestnut, or sausage, depending on whether you are vegan. Although, most saussies contain little meat so the point is moot. Anyway, how much of our nature, psychology and physiology is determined, or predetermined, by our genetics and how much is due to environmental influences? This may seem like a stupid question as certain traits are undeniably wholly determined by genetics and others mainly determined by the environment. I say mainly because we can never be truly free from the shackles of our genes. No one would deny that eye colour is a wholly genetic trait. What about muscular strength? The more we lift heavy weights the stronger our muscles become. This would seem to be a human feature totally influenced by hard endeavour. But humble readers you would be mistaken. Genes can exert subtle and not so subtle influences on our resultant physique. We all vary with regard to our innate ability to gain muscle mass through exercise. Also, there are behavioural factors that come under genetic control and influence our motivation to 'work out'. At the extreme end of determinism, there is a mutation in a single gene which confers an almost superhuman ability to gain muscle mass. Mutations within the MSTN gene cause hypertrophy of the skeletal muscles resulting in phenomenal physical strength.

The original conception of Communism considered environmental influences to be paramount. The potential to achieve was inbuilt and just required the right (or left) environmental stewardship to make geniuses of us all. Clearly, this exalted expression of environmentalism is patently absurd. But when has Communism been a rational political system? To see the ultimate madness of 'environmental Communism' consider the debacle of Lysenkoism- a crazy theory based on the thoroughly debunked idea of Lamarckism. I'll not elaborate here. I have tackled the insane fruits of rampant Marxism elsewhere. Tis enough to state that Lysenkoism put back the furtherance of genetic research and knowledge in the USSR by nearly three decades.  

Should scientists be allowed to pursue wherever their muse shall lead-free from political interference? Those whose idealism is unflinching would say yea. However, those whose wisdom has been tempered by the goad of experience understand that science generally comes under the heal of our political masters, at least to some extent. Try getting a government-sponsored research grant if your work is deemed 'socially unacceptable' by the powers that take our gelt in taxes.

Certain areas of research, for political reasons, are judged beyond the pale. Consider research into the vexed area of intelligence and race. It has been known for a while that innate intelligence is highly influenced by genetic factors. Let us not be misled or distracted by the scope of current intelligence tests. Clearly, intelligence tests, although by no means perfect, do measure cognitive ability to a remarkable extent. Those who score high on the tests are those that tend to become societies' professionals, all other things being equal. An IQ of 80 (mean population IQ=100) is a fast track to prison and/or a marginal societal existence unless of course you are born into fabulous riches. Let us be clear: investigations into differences in mean IQ and race is considered highly controversial and elicit an almost hysterical response from the liberal left. Cogent research indicates that there are inherent genetic differences between races and relative cognition. I  recommend my readers to undertake their own investigation. Be warned: there is a lot obscurification and misdirection that has nothing to do with scientific integrity and is often promulgated by those with a vested interest to suppress this sort of thing. And before I'm judged as a white supremacist, it would do well to note that ethnic groups scoring highest are the highly exclusive Ashkenazi Jews and South-East Asians.

Are there practical consequences of IQ and race research? I'll leave my readers to ponder deep on this question in a world of globalisation and mass immigration. Nuff said.

         

Wednesday 24 July 2019

The Queen is Dead, Long live the King


In a land far away from the kingdom of Tipton, there was a land (Birminghamland) ruled by an evil Queen Therresalinda the ‘Unready’. She caused consternation and vexation throughout the land and the thegns and bondsmen were very, verily discombobulated. The noblemen did conspire her usurpation and plotted her demise as they were unhappy with the scant and torturous dealings with the adjacent kingdom of Teutland. And it came to pass that Therresalinda while passing royal fluids upon the royal stool did accidentally smite her head/crown against a strategically placed Dane axe. Thereupon her head did roll clean orwf where it landed in the local midden pit, there to be feasted upon by stray dogs and wandering wastrels/minstrels.

The noblemen met in conclave in the Great Hall and feasted heartedly bemoaning the fate of their dead Queen with cackles of laughter and merriment. But who would take the crown and diadem of the mighty kingdom of Birminghamland in these turbulent times and provide a war band and gelt to steer the land to greatness? Who would amass the Carls and standards to stand firm against the hordes of Teutland? The Great Hall descended unto stillness as the nobles pondered these matters of grave import. Ulrick ‘The Incompetent/Incontinent’ (not mutually exclusive characteristics) put forth that mayhap the good noblemen should cast bones in support of their chosen candidate. The laughter of derision did stir the scene as democracy did not abide in Birminghamland. The Birminghamlanders only followed the strong. And anyway, no one could take counsel from a man with two-tone trousers; yellow at the front, brown at the back. No bones would be cast that day.

As the Nobles contemplated their future fate a loud incessant booming clamour did avail itself at the Great Hall’s door. The Nobles turned as one to gaze upon the Great Door in the Great Hall in vivid and lurid expectation. And suddenly the door did wrench from its hinges as if Thunnor had smighted (not a real word) the oak with his mighty hammer. A gasp did collectively emit from the collective mass, for there stood a man of sublime countenance. A man arrayed in golden armour wielding a flashing sword and holding a shield emblazoned with a kipper. His flaxen hair did shine with an unearthly ethereal gleam and upon his broad shoulders sat a ferret, called Shagger (sorry, couldn’t help myself). The nobles did mutter amongst themselves: “Could this be Woden come to provide succour to this troubled land in this troubled time?”. At that moment the man spoke (more god than man, mayhap?): “Fear not, for I’m Bojo of the Vale and I’m here to save the land and lead it from the travails which assail it. I will lead the war band against the Teuts and negotiate a good deal concerning Brexit". The Nobles did cheer as one although they knew not this Brexit thingy- this being 826 AD, an all. "Hail the king, Hail Bojo".

And so it came to pass that Bojo, he of many verbal gaffs/gifts, would lead this land into greatness and prosperity.

As for Ulrick ‘The Incompetent/Incontinent: he missed the whole proceedings as he had to leave the Great Hall to attend to matters scatological after ingesting a rather dodgy vindaloo/poo. Arrrrrrrrse!

To be continued.                

          

Monday 22 July 2019

Musings from a man who can't sleep without seeing Daemons

Before reading Flaxen's bespoke writings you are strongly advised to follow and digest the material on the following link. Otherwise, you may be moved to think that the author is utterly and unrepentantly.........
stark raving bonkers.



Shock breaking news from the rain drenched, windswept, sun eschewing town of Tipton on the Tip. Whilst walking her enigmatic ferret, Shagger, Mrs Edna Mugumbo came across a troop of feral gypos foraging in the local midden pit. Amongst the mangy, filthy, unkempt and illiterate group she noticed a half-grown human child not yet past the age of majority. The child crawled on all fours and aped the animal's atavistic grunts. Edna noticed that the child appeared very comfortable with the wild animals and even engaged in troop activities such as stacking scrap metal into piles; fashioning pegs from the finest dried dog shit and all the while managing to avoid paying tax, of any description. Mrs Mugumbo alerted the relevant authorities and the intrepid 'Gypo Squad' under the auspices of inspector, Enoch Mugumbo (no relation) of the yard swung into concerted inaction. After reviewing the evidence in the local hostelry, 'The Feltching Ferret' and imbibing 15 pints of the local brew, 'Ole Throat Gobbler' the dauntless team descended onto/into the midden pit like men deranged.

After much swaying and staggering they managed to secure the gypo cum child but only after running a gauntlet of fortune-tellers and purveyors of smelly, crudely fashioned pegs. At one stage during the proceedings, they were offered an alabaster bust of Michelangelo's David endowed with a suspiciously large phallus. As one critic was stirred to note: "Michelangelo's David has little to do with the fluid genius of the high renaissance, as such, and indeed takes too much from Classical Greek sculpture without adding the subtle but majestic sweep of the genre. The effect is almost a caricature and bemoans a florid abandon of the classical roots it labours and seeks to emulate. Arse".

Finally, after being told that, collectively they had lucky faces and that they would all inherit great wealth from an unexpected source, they managed to escape with the child and a whippet called Bob.

The child was whisked to Tipton General Infirmary for the Infirm and there examined by the renowned Doctor, Josef Mengele. The good doctor noted that the savage infant displayed all the hallmarks of a gypo child and hence was deemed non-human. Consequently, the child was consigned to the experimental wing of the hospital where Mengele injected coloured dye into the gypo's iris in order to mimic Aryan humanity.

On a happier note, Bob the Whippet has been re-homed with a nice middle-class family in Solihull. To date, the whippet has managed to steal all the garments awf the neighbour's clotheslines, collected sundry copper wire from various industrial locations and all this without paying a lick or pant of tax.

We certainly live in wondrous times. Double arse.



Inspector Mugumbo. in repose


Saturday 20 July 2019

The French Mutinies of 1917

The eyes say it all

By April 1917 the French army had suffered one million deaths. Indeed, by the end of 1914, in just five months of war, they had suffered one million casualties. At the beginning of the conflict, the war was just a glorious game, and the French army advanced onto German machine guns in red pantaloons with bands playing led by officers who thought it chic to die in white gloves.

The German Verdun offensive of 1916 (February - December) had ostensibly been a German defeat however, the French had played directly into the German’s hands who viewed the battle as one of attrition- simply a means to kill French soldiers. At the end of the battle, the French had suffered about 400,000 casualties while the Germans suffered nearly 350,000. The French could ill afford such horrendous losses at this stage of the war. After being mauled so thoroughly in 1916, the French army was in no state for major offensive action in 1917 and wise heads in the military and civilian government should have realised this harsh reality. The leader of the French army at the end of 1916 was General Robert Nivelle. Nivelle was a rather charming General and unlike most of his contemporaries was able to vocalise well-constructed sentences in both French and English. More importantly, Nivelle had formulated a plan. He stated that he would lead an offensive on the Aisne which would shatter the German lines and perhaps bring the war to a successful end. Nivelle announced that he had discovered the secret of victory. For reasons, not governed by logic or reality, the French government decided to put Nivelle’s plan into action. The Germans wanted no part of the plan and they made a strategic withdrawal, between 16th - 20th of March, in the Aisne region to new secure lines (the vaunted Hindenburg line). Sound heads now thought the offensive unnecessary, but Neville was a man spellbound and would not relent. To compound Nivelle’s problems, the Germans had captured a French soldier complete/replete with the battle plans- there would be no surprise in this battle.
  
On 16th April the French infantry went over the top. It was clear by the end of the first day that the offensive would not achieve its ambitious goals and the French suffered 90,000 casualties. By the end of three weeks, the butcher’s bill stood at 180,000. There were gains in territory and it was not as if this offensive was any worse than other Allied offensive. The problem lay with Nivelle’s conviction that this battle would put the German’s to flight. Sadly for Nivelle, and the French army, the German line held. Nivelle had promised much and the exhausted French army had fought/thought this battle on reserves of hope. Once it became clear that the offensive had stalled, and the hope unfulfilled, morale collapsed.  

Due to the battle’s failure, Nivelle disappeared into the pages of history and was replaced by Petain who favoured the doctrine of defence. Petain's slogan: “We must wait for the Americans and tanks” saved many French lives.

You must forgive this rather extensive preamble: it is difficult to follow what subsequently transpired without this lengthy introduction.

Widespread insurrection and frank mutiny followed the battle. Soldiers marched to the front bleating like sheep. Within a short period, 54 divisions were refusing to take orders from their officers and soon it was estimated that there were only two reliable French divisions on the Western Front. Tis strange but news of the mutiny did not reach the foe. If the Germans had attacked at this time they would have confronted scant resistance and, potentially at least, would have forged deep into France; mayhap, threatening the capital, Paris (sacre bleu). Even if the Germans had had wind of the mutiny it is unlikely that they could exploit the French’s loss of spirit with any strength. Offensives on the Western Front required immense organisation of troops and logistics in-depth- this cannot be extemporized or made manifest because of unusually favourable opportunities on the front. The fluid battle doctrine of the Second World War did not yet exist.

The mutineers, in some units, were organised along Soviet lines. The recent unrest in Russia provided a template for semi-organised rebellion. To be fair, many French soldiers feared election as leaders of their units. They rightly surmised that so-called ‘ring leaders’ would receive harsh treatment by the authorities in the near future. And after all, most of the soldiers did not want a social revolution, they wanted better food and leave and most of all they did not want their lives squandered on pointless and fruitless offensives. Indeed, it was a lack of organisation, motivation and coordination which doomed the formulation of revolution according to Lenin or even Marxist dictate. Regardless, the French, and by extension, their British allies, were mighty/mightly scared at the time and some doomsayers predicted the demise of the French army with a disastrous consequence for the future conduct of the war.             
  
The French authorities were in a dilemma: of course, they could not condone the mutiny but a heavy hand would have made the situation worse and so they acted according to prudence. On the positive side, food rations were improved together with the promise of leave. Petain assured the soldiers that there would be no further offensives for the rest of 1917. It is estimated that 50 French soldiers were executed although this may have been an underestimate as records of the period were understandably suppressed. The judicious use of the ‘carrot and the stick’ worked and the soldiers returned to their trenches. They would defend the trenches but the offensive spirit was, no more. The British would have to take up the offensive slack and thus suffer the grinding mill of mud and bullets at the battle of Passchendaele, later that year. As a postscript: the French were against this battle from the start. They did not want the British army to be ground down to a stub. Passchendaele did not lead the British army to mutiny, but it destroyed the idealism of the British soldiers. From then on it would be a pragmatic, professional assault on the German defences; the days of romantic heroism were long gone, but the slaughter remained.
   

           



Saturday 13 July 2019

George Formby and Shagger vs Lugless Douglas

"Can you hear me Dougy"

As you will recall we left our intrepid heroes: George Formby and his grilling ukulele (featuring Shagger the Wonder Ferret) on a Tipton pavement. They had just foiled the evil machinations of the dastardly, Arthur Askey. As you will further recall, the arch villain had been deprived of his legs after an accident involving a chainsaw thus impeding his rapid egress. Indeed, Arthur, subsequently lost his penis in a freak accident to be regaled to my readers at some time in the near future. Notwithstanding (he couldn’t stand), naughty Arthur had made good his escape and had been able to return to his dank lair. No mean feat considering he didn’t have any feet (or a cock).

“Back to the Grilling Cave”, declared George. And so it came to pass that man and ferret hopped on the number 17 bus to George’s bedsit atop the cafe, ‘The Lard Buffet’. Once ensconced in their hovel they dined on an exotic mix of faggot and peas, downed with a pint of foaming ale, ‘Ole Twat Blaster’. Twas then that George received a call, on his ferret phone, from Inspector Enoch ‘kipper’ Mugumbo of the yard. “George, we have a predicament of calamitous proportions. Lugless Douglas has escaped from Tipton prison and has been seen roaming Tipton High street with errant abandon". As you will no doubt further, further, recall, our Dougy was bereft of his pinna (bilateral) after an ill-advised encounter with Mike ‘bites ya lugs’ Tyson. Thereafter, Dougie’s glasses would aslide clean awf his face straight into the local midden pit unless restrained with a couple of bicycle clips. Some aver that it was the loss of his ears that turned our villain from a pillock of society to a very, very, naughty boy. And so Dougy, sans lugs, became an arsonist (Dougy prefers to be called an incendiary, as he considers the monicker, arsonist, pejorative and an affront to his dignity and human rights). He would target optician stores throughout the borough of Tipton and surrounding environs (Dudley excluded) sending the beleaguered shops into a fiery inferno and conflagration of hellish proportions. For his spate of arsony- ARSE (not a real word) Dougy was sentenced to 15 years to be served in the infamous, ‘Tipton Gaol’. A grime besmirched Victorian monstrosity rumoured to hold the notorious, infamous criminal, ‘Stinky Eric’- he of terminal halitosis fame.

“Shagger, to the ‘ferret mobile”. Shagger and George alighted upon a tandom/random bicycle and pedalled furiously. As a digression: in truth, only fullsome toothsome George provided the propelling motivation and guided the vehicle. This should come as no surprise as Shagger’s legs could not quite reach the pedals and he lacked the opposable thumbs requisite for a secure grip on the handlebars.

Our heroic duo arrived in Tipton High street adjacent to Mr Khan’s Optical Emporium and Halal Aboiteur of Renown. Our dodgy Dougy was observed alighting/loitering in said store and was caught flagrantly setting light to a particularly volatile, optically viable, lamb cutlet. Before George could intervene the store burst into a mass of flames reminiscent of Dante’s Inferno. Dougie’s escape was obstructed by a full-size statue of Michelangelo's David rendered in rendered tallow from the finest goose fat. In this particular rendition, the stature’s naughty bits were uncharacteristically covered with an artfully crafted imitation kaleidoscope. If viewed from a jaunty angle the micropenis dissolved unto a multitude of fractured iridescence: I’m starting to digress/regress. The statue disintegrated under the immense heat smearing the unfortunate criminal in frying grade fat. Without his pinna, to deflect the boiling fat, the roiling grease found its way into his external auditory meatus. Thereafter it reached Dougie’s cerebral cortex (10 minutes a side, rotate after 5 minutes) cooking it to a tender mush. Dougie relinquished the gift of life and became one with the blazing building. The store could not be saved and Mr Khan lost his valuable collection of salty, pickled comestible, sweetmeats. We shall never see their like again.

Undaunted, our heroic duo could intervene no more and therefore retreated to the grilling cave to await developments anew. Once ensconced, George addressed his ferrety friend thusly: “Well Shagger, another Tipton villain has been thwarted in his criminal endeavour. We shall never cease our vigilance and heroic ministrations and we will always be ready to deliver extreme unction to all Tipton’s criminal class until peace descends supreme on this filth besmirched land. Arse". 

                     
I've written about Legless Douglas before. See here.



                                            






Friday 12 July 2019

Time Travel, Anyone?

The Arrow of Time
Is time travel possible? What a great question, I’m glad you asked it. The initial problem we have to face is that there is still no consensus between philosophers and scientists of what constitutes time. There are a number of theories and many seem valid at a superficial level, but once we get to grips with the central problem and the concept of time, things start to become blurry around the edge. Something which appears simple, and everyday commonplace, is mired in complexity and apparent contradiction. I’ve had a tentative foray into this particular rabbit hole- check out my musings here and here. My pontifications on the matter are not definitive and I intend to visit the topic once again.

It could be argued that we all travel in time, eventually. But traveling through time as a consequence of getting older is not most folk’s idea/ideal of time travel: this only has meaning at the trivial and jocular level. The question we need to ask is- can we progress in time, both forward and backward, outside the normally accepted frame of time passage? Einstein’s theory of special relativity certainly allows for a form of future time travel due to the realisation that space and time are manifestations of the same thing; space-time. Thus, if you travel in a spaceship at 99.5% the speed of light for a period of 5 years, at least according to your time reference, folk on Earth would age a corresponding 50 years. If you left the Earth in 2020 and returned after a 5-year absence the date on Earth would be 2070 (the so-called, twin paradox). You could argue that this represents a form of time travel due to time dilation. What about the reverse- is it possible to travel back in time? If we consider the arrow of time inexorably moving forward without backward kinks, then the simple answer is an emphatic, probably not. This has not stopped science fiction writers, cosmologists, and theoretical physicists from exploring the possibility. However, just because we can advance a viable theoretical concept this does not necessarily relate to practical reality. Mathematical solutions to the equations of general relativity allow the possibility of backward time travel and several apparently practical solutions have been advanced. I’ll consider two, albeit briefly, of the most interesting ‘time machine’ solutions as there isn’t enough space-time to give an overall summary of all the conceptualised methodologies. Of course, going back in time would reveal a paradox, known as the ‘Grandfather Paradox’. Imagine returning to a time before your grandfather had met your grandmother. Now envisage killing your grandad. The paradox of such a scenario is obvious: now that good old granpappy is dead your father could not exist, and by extension, you would not have been born to go back in time to kill your grandad. There have been several attempts to resolve the paradox. To my mind, however, they raise more problems than they solve/resolve. 

The Tipler Cylinder solution: this possible solution involves rotating a very dense and very large cylinder at very high speeds (several billions of revolutions per minute). If this is possible then space-time adjacent to the cylinder will be warped resulting in a causal reality violation (wot dat den?). Any craft close to the cylinder would be in a time closed curve. According to the theory, this would allow the craft to travel back in time. There is one little problemette. I was being disingenuous when talking about the density of the cylinder and its length. The density of the cylinder would have to be stupendously dense: perhaps we could mine superdense neutron stars? Also, it would appear that the cylinder would have to be infinitely long. But, after all, we do exist in an infinite universe, perhaps…….

There have been other solutions based around wormholes. Wormholes are theoretical constructs allowing the connection of disparate regions of space-time. Wormholes could be natural (we have haven’t found one yet) or perhaps man-made. It appears however that for backward time travel exotic particles with negative energy and mass would be required. The artificial option would require huge amounts of energy and the great lamented physicist, Stephen Hawkin, reckoned such a contraption/contrivance inherently unstable and short-lived.

Wormhole of Doom
One thing rarely mentioned is how we would control these ‘contraptions’ (assuming of course that one of these 'machines' actually worked). There appears no dialing mechanism to set the backward leap in time to a specific period. And where on Earth would our intrepid traveler alight? Mayhap, they would end up in the vacuum of space or on Pluto? Remember both time and space are being warped. I can’t help wonder if clever theoretical physicists are engaged in a little ‘blue sky’ sophistry: perhaps they are using the concept of time travel simply as a means to exercise their intellectual muscle and to devise solutions to intricate and arcane mathematical formulae.

I would like to conclude with a little whimsy. On June 2009, Stephen Hawking (for it is he) set forth a unique party at Cambridge University. An open invitation was given but no one appeared at the allotted space and time. This should surprise no one as Prof. Hawking had sent his invitation after the party had finished (what a scamp!). The invitation, although universal, was particularly addressed to future time travelers. Hawking was not particularly surprised at the none attendance as he had postulated in 1992 that time travel into the past is fundamentally impossible. Nuff said, for now.

The cheap bastard served blue nun wine
        

        






Wednesday 3 July 2019

I Thank You


Arthur says: "Stop being a cunt"

Arthur Askey was born in the hamlet of Tipton on August 9th, 1836. He grew up in extreme poverty but despite great hardship, he grew into a cheerful chappy. When he was nine, disaster struck. A freak yachting accident left him with a paralysed left nostril- he would never sniff again.

His parents had marked him out for a labouring job in heavy industry, but Arthur had other plans. At 16 he caught the number 12 bus and ran away to the neighbouring borough of Dudley. He quickly caught the eye of Peggy in personnel and was offered a position as a shelf stacker in Tescos. He would entertain shoppers with his comic impressions of the then incumbent Prime Minister, Clement 'Big Clem' Atlee.

At the age of 20, he managed to secure a position as the resident comedian and toilet cleaner at the Dudley town theatre. But as is often the case with comedians, tragedy struck a second time. During his act, which involved toad sexing whilst juggling a variety of exotic lards, his legs fell orf. By a freak chance of fate, 'No Fingers' McGee was practising his chain saw extravaganza. McGees' act involved slicing cans of fruit to produce a delightful fruit salad. However, on this occasion, a passing fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster) so distracted him that he flung the chainsaw at 'Big Hearted' Arthur.

Arthur's legs caught the full brunt of the errant appliance and his legs rolled clean away and by chance ended up in the cheap seats. Arthur had never been a big man, but now devoid of legs, he remained a proud 2 foot 3 inches, without shoes.

Arthur remained undaunted and used to propel himself on a bespoke skateboard. By a cruel irony, he was secured to the board by a ragged piece of sinew which extended from one of his severed stumps. He would never walk again without the use of a cane.

In the next thrilling instalment, I will regale my readers with how Arthur lost his cock. 

To be continued........     

In the meantime, suck on this.


        

Tuesday 2 July 2019

George before becoming a Superhero.........

A blast from the past?


                                                             George, stop being a twat......

George Formby was born in abject poverty in North Tipton circa 1904, next to the ill-famed ‘Ferret Factory of fun’, a bawdy house of ill repute. His formative years were spent cleaning windows and when not gainfully employed he would often be found leaning on a lamp post. His big break came in 1932 when he invented the ‘George Formby grilling banjo.’ His great insight was to tilt a hot banjo at a jaunty angle of 45 degrees. In this way, the molten lard rolled clean orf the food and wended its way to the adjacent midden pit. Inventions thereafter came thick and fast. Who can forget the ukulele that doubled as a cheese slicer?

Still a twat
In 1940 ‘Fulsome Toothed George’ married a shrew of a woman called Agnes, although from some angles Agnes resembled a ferret and this association was somewhat reinforced by her penchant for gnawing through electric cables. Under her baleful gaze, George ascended to new dizzy heights of culinary genius and invented an electric guitar which doubled as a deep fat fryer. But in 1948 Agnes was electrocuted during an ill-advised mastication session involving a 240-volt transformer. This was an all too common occurrence in the Formby household, however on this occasion the transformer happened to be plugged into the electric supply. 
Agnes before the accident

George was never quite the same and began frequenting the local hostelries thereabouts. It was during an ill-fated night of inebriation that George had an epiphany. He awoke, stark bollock naked, on a park bench, at 4am in the morning, with a Chinaman sucking his toes. The Chinaman with the toe fetish turned out to be none other than Mr Wu (it could be no other) and they decided there and then to go into the laundry business together...........Arse bucket. 
    
                                                                         To be continued............