Karmisticia Festival of Spoken Food

With Karmisticia being a mobile nation, as detailed in this previous post, its economy is unable to follow many conventional models. The climate means that agriculture faces many difficulties, and the tiny population and limited space mean that industry is also a non-starter.

As a result, the government of Karmisticia commissioned a tourism bureau, in order to manufacture "distinctive and uniquely Karmistician events, which will attract international tourism". The first of these events is the Karmisticia Festival of Spoken Food, an event where "Speakers" (poets, writers, actors and performers) are invited to pair up with chefs from around the world, whereupon they will share and discuss a 3-Course meal cooked by the chef, which the Speaker will then turn interpret into a 5-minute monologue.

French chef Andron Mibeu, preparing his meal's monologue with Lithuanian beatboxer Drops2. Photograph by C John Thompson.

©2012 James Mathurin

Longest cow-milking

The longest ever spent milking a cow was 7 months and 19 days, by Moldovan Artur Shmill. Interviewed after the 9^th week, Shmill explained,

“I cannot stop until I milk beer from this cow. It was a foolish bet, that I made with my cousin, but I refuse to give up.” 

Despite adapting the milking stool he sat on into a toilet, and handcuffing his hands to the cows udder to sleep, Shmill had to give up without success, when his right ring finger fell off, forcing him to go for medical attention.

Artur's cousin, Nicolae, transporting one of the752 deliveries of milk produced by Artur's epic milk. The horse, Prince Donkaevie, was eventually crippled by the excessive workload, but in order to save him from being rendered into glue and steak, the Shmill family adopted him in 2002. Photograph by sergejf.

©2012 James Mathurin

The longest prison sentence ever received for spitting chewing gum

The longest prison sentence ever received for spitting chewing gum onto a pavement was 17 years, imposed on Pierre Bonnechop by a court in Paris France, in 1976. Bonnechop had been seen spitting out 79 kilogrammes of gum on the rue de Cheveux, over 3 hours, on the morning of February 16^th that year. By the time he was arrested, the pile of gum measured 76cm high. Pleading guilty in court, Bonnechop told the Magistrate, Henri Poivre, “I don’t know what came over me, but for those 3 hours, literally all I could think was chew, spit, chew, spit, chew, spit. It may have been a reaction to my worries over the French dairy farming industry.”

After his early release in 1990, Bonnechop moved to this farm, outside of Tours. He has voluntarily taken part in several public awareness campaigns about public hygiene, including 3 videos where he appears as the anti-chewing gum mascot, "Le monstre qui mâche". Photograph by PhillipC.

©2012 James Mathurin

The world’s most severe case of déjà vu

The world’s most severe case of déjà vu was attributed to Glenn Mackerbie, of Harare, Zimbabwe in May 1998, after he spent fifteen years insisting that every day was one he remembered from before. His wife Gladys said,

“It has had such an effect on our life. I know he can’t help it, but my feelings were hurt slightly when I organised a surprise fiftieth birthday party for him, and he just said, ‘Didn’t we do this yesterday?’”

 The previous title holder, Nicole Panacetti, of Lisbon, Portugal, was disqualified when it was discovered that she had lived in the same room for 9 years, listening to the same Gladys Knight & The Pips LP, and reading the same copy of Barbara Cartland’s book Passion in the Ironmonger’s, and thus forcibly conditioning herself to constantly experience a ‘synthetic déjà vu.’

 Glenn and Gladys Mackerbie, pictured on vacation in the United States in 1997. Glenn's déjà vu continued on the trip, much to the annoyance of Gladys. She wrote in her diary of the trip, "Again, Glenn is asking if we have been here before. We haven't even visited this continent before!" Photograph by Mangrove Mike.

©2012 James Mathurin

The quickest ever Holy Crusade

The quickest ever Holy Crusade was over in 2 hours and 13 minutes on the 20^th March 1853, when Edward Denison, the Bishop of Salisbury, declared that a crusade would be organised to recover the Cap of Alginon, a holy relic that was under his possession. He declared that the cap had disappeared, and had been, “spirited away by agents of Beelzebub, probably from Switzerland,” but after preparations had begun, it was discovered that one of his maids had accidentally knocked the cap behind the Bishop’s drinks cabinet.

This image of the parchment of Lower Divebeny, produced by a verger of Bishop Denison's parish to commemorate the "Crusade of the Cap", as it became known in satirical magazines of the time. The Unicorn is sad to represent the Bishop, the Dragon to represent a "Swiss Demon", and the unidentified creature (possibly a hyena), pictured at the bottom is said to represent an angel, leading the unicorn to the drinks cabinet and the hidden cap. Picture by grongar.

 ©2012 James Mathurin

The most animals to stand as candidates in the same election

The most animals to stand as candidates in the same election stands at 19, in the Local Authority elections of Bitstock, a town in Devon, Britain, in 2002. Candidates included Oscar, a Chinchilla (Independent), Lord Somersby, a Great Bernard (Independent), and Phillipa, a Baboon (Sum Dum Monkey Party). Oscar’s campaign manager and owner, Brenda Milthorne explained, “This was an organised protest over the fact that, despite 15 years of mismanagement and, many believe, corruption, our Local Authority is still headed by Dame Shirley Atkins, a convicted criminal who has expressed utter contempt for local democracy, and lives in Spain for 11 months out of every year.” Ms. Milthorne insisted that the number of candidates for the ‘animal protest vote’ may have been too high, as the number of votes they gained would have got 3 of them onto the Local Authority if it had been shared between fewer candidates.

Although none of the nominated "Bitstock 19" won their Local Authority elections, this Pug Dog, Dame Bickerstaffe, did successfullly stand for election as the town mayor 3 years later. Photograph provided by DaPuglet.

©2012 James Mathurin

Most erotic cooking instructions

The Most erotic cooking instructions are the 14th Century Persian book الغذاء ليالي الصحراوية الطويلة (roughly translated as "Food for long desert nights"), by an unknown author. It is only legal in 57 countries to print 3 extracts from the book.

This bound copy of the book was being used by Issamm Joabchim to produce a French translation for publication in Belgium in 1753, when his cottage exploded. When the book was the only thing to be found intact in the wreckage, it was confiscated by the Vatican as being a "Satanic Appendage". Image supplied by -MRTN-

©2012 James Mathurin