Me: I’m not telling you.

Becky: Socks?

Me: No.

Becky: A book? I hope it’s not a book. I don’t like books.

Me: It’s not a book.

Becky: A fake hand for when I lose mine?

Me: No.

Becky: Plastic apple pie?

Me: Nope.

Becky: A wig for when you stress me out so much I get alopecia?

Me: It’ll be here in a couple of days, just wait.

Becky: Dentures for when I lose my teeth?

Me: No.

Becky: Stick on nipples to make me look like a freak?

Me: Nu-uh.

Becky: Elephant foot shoes to make really suspicious footprints?

Me: N… No?

Becky: A teacup for my invisible friend who isn’t talking to me at the moment?

Me: Okay, yes. That one. Why not.

Me: *sigh* I don’t know, some tedious douchebag with an acoustic guitar and no sense of originality.

Boss: HAVE YOU COMPLETED YOUR TASK OF CLEANING OUT THE STOCK ROOM?

Me: Oh, sorry… I got sidetracked with the -

Boss: I COMMANDED YOU TO CLEAN OUT THE STOCK ROOM. YOU HAVE NOT DONE AS I COMMANDED. YOU MUST OBEY. OBEY. OBEY.

Me: I, okay – I will, I just have to -

Boss: YOU HAVE NOT DONE AS I COMMANDED. YOU MUST OBEY. OBEY. OBEY.

Me: I was busy counting the money in the tip jar!

Boss: THAT IS THE WORK OF THE ASSISTANT MANAGER. YOU ARE NOT THE ASSISTANT MANAGER.

Me: Okay, I’ll do it in a second, but I’m just in the middle of -

Boss: YOU DEFY ME ONCE MORE. I MUST EXTERMINATE. EXTERMINATE. EXTERMINAAAATE.

Me: Uh, okay… I’m fired, right? Is that what that means?

Boss: EXTERMINAAAATE.

Drunk Guy: Hey you, buddy; what’s your name?

Me: Uhh… It’s Felix.

Drunk Guy: Felix? Haha! Whats kinda name’s ‘at? Were you… christian-donned… Felix?

Me: Christiandonned? Do you mean, ‘was I christened Felix?’

Drunk Guy: Huh… uh, yeah. Christendenned…

Me: ‘Christened’; and yeah, I was indeed.

Drunk Guy: Hnn… I bet – I bet you like The Doors, don’t you…

Me: Uhh, yeah, actually. I do.

Drunk Guy: Mmm… ss’what I thought.

*Drunk Guy wanders off nodding to himself*

Me: … … …

Becky: I need a pen!

Me: You are the most crazy.

Becky: I’m having thoughts!

Felix: Okay, starting in 1939, take me through the history of The Second World War.

Ian: ’39 to ’45?

Felix: Uh, yeah. Well done.

Ian: Okay, right. Once upon a time…

Felix: Great start.

Ian: Once upon a time, there was this guy called Adolf Hitler. Got his ass whooped by some English people. Prior to that he was just a young guy growing up thinking ‘How can I conquer the world‘. Who put that seed into his head? Who knows. Uncle? Godfather? Whatever. Anyway, he got his posse of German friends together.

Felix: Haha, right. This is already utterly bewildering, but okay. Then what?

Ian: Decided maybe at university with a few bunch of maps.

Felix: Maps, right. Yeah, he looked at a map of the world and just thought ‘I’ll have that.’

Ian: Start a dictatorship going.

Felix: I, well… It’s not a ‘dictatorship’ if its a group. A dictatorship is, essentially, a form of autocratic government; a single ruler, not a group.

Ian: Yeah, Adolf Hitler… and his homies…

Felix: What about them?

Ian: … had a conversation.

Felix: About what?

Ian: How to take on the world.

Felix: For what purpose?

Ian: The purpose is the question; the ultimate question of Adolf Hitler’s question… for power? Designed a plan of power, greed, and the ultimate style of German.

Felix: That’s a bit… Okay, I guess?

Ian: How many Germans do you know? Will they be offended by this? Just put in a disclaimer saying ‘Don’t be offended by this dumb-ass, bald-headed twat.’

Felix: Haha, right, no problem. So, go on…

Ian: Three of his friends started an underground revolution… evolution, or revolution?

Felix: Revolution.

Ian: Revolution. Pirate radio. Getting people’s heads brainwashed,

Felix: What’s with the ‘three friends’ bit?

Ian: Uhh… you know… Rommel? Goering?

Felix: Haha, I can’t believe you actually know those names.

Ian: … started a plan… of a symbol: to end a symbol… of stature.

Felix: What?

Ian: What’s the word? ‘Stature’? ‘Eedee stature’?

Felix: ‘Eedee stature’?

Ian: ‘Eedee stature’.

Felix: ‘Eedee’?

Ian: Yeah.

Felix: … … …

Ian: What’s another word for stature?

Felix: I don’t know… ‘prominence’, ‘social standing’, ‘hierarchy’?

Ian: Yeah, domination for the nation.

Felix: But… what word did you mean?

Ian: Like, when you take pride in stuff.

Felix: ‘Patriotism’?

Ian: Are Germans patriotic? I don’t know.

Felix: I guess. Was it ‘Himmler’ you were referring to before by the way? The ‘third friend’ in this bizarre sitcom scenario you’re completely inventing?

Ian: Yeah, Himmler, Goering, and… what’s the other one? Rommel?

Felix: Yeah, Rommel. Why not…

Ian: I don’t know much history, but I do know some history…

Felix: You know, they didn’t start out as a bunch of mates hanging out. They’re not a rock band. Hitler wasn’t an Austrian Mick Jagger.

Ian: No, but they got acquainted; got conversation; tea, coffee, toast; a few nights out.

Felix: Haha, yeah, they just popped down to the pub for some brewskis. ‘So… Jews, am I right?’

Ian: Something like that…

Felix: I don’t actually think they knew each other at all before moving up in their parties.

Ian: Yeah, well… friend of a friend. Politics. Word of mouth. Elections: get elected. Stuff like that. That’s the short and curlies of it.

Felix: Well, okay. This is all completely, demonstrably wrong so far, but go on. What about the course of the actual war?

Ian: … It’s pretty deep and meaningful.

Felix: … … …

Ian: Right, after having…

Felix: After four friends got together and…

Ian: … sat around a table.

Felix: Sat around their table.

Ian: A table.

Felix: Sat round a table… of some description.

Ian: … having a meal, with frankfurters.

Felix: Okay.

Ian: … and some… bratwurst, beers, and… whatever they decided to have.

Felix: Whatever Germans eat. I mean, they might have just been having cheese on toast; they weren’t necessarily having their ‘national snacks’…

Ian: … … …

Felix: But okay, whatever. So they’re having their sour kraut, they’re round a kitchen table in Himmler’s flat, and then what?

Ian: Private communication.

Felix: Okay, yeah. They were having private communications. A ‘conversation’ you could say.

Ian: A conversation, starting their… evolution, revolution, of Germany; their plan to take on… and conquer…

Felix: What, the world… or?

Ian: Start… uh, starting off with Europe. See how Europe went.

Felix: Haha just see how it goes. ‘Just a bit of Europe, and then if we like it… just maybe branch out west?’

Ian: Yeah, just see how it goes. North, south, east, west.

Felix: Those are… the four directions.

Ian: Yeah, and see what… see which they can conquer first.

Felix: Right, so they embark on their conquering spree.

Ian: They… Uhh, they embark on a journey.

Felix: It’s not that – It’s not The Lord of The Rings!

Ian: Well, it kind of is, but…

Felix: Four friends, haha, embark on a journey from west Germany…

Ian: It is for Hitler.

Felix: Well he wasn’t from Germany, he was from Austria.

Ian: Ahh, so an Austrian trying to take over the world. Hmm…

Felix: Why’s that different from a German trying to take over the world?

Ian: Two different countries?

Felix: Ha, well yeah. I know it’s literally different! I just mean… oh, forget it. So, an Austrian and three Germans, I assume the rest were German, go on a Lord of The Rings style journey…

Ian: A journey, a tour…

Felix: … to defeat Sauron, and…

Ian: … Gollum.

Felix: … and Gollum, yeah.

Ian: Whatever you call him.

Felix: You call him Gollum.

Ian: Hahaha

Felix: Haha, and then what?

Ian: Just start to get their ideal of how people should be.

Felix: The Aryan race?

Ian: Yeah, blonde hair, blue eyes.

Felix: Scandinavian.

Ian: Yeah, as everybody, even now, wants to go for.

Felix: Do they?

Ian: Well, I mean… if you had a Swede turn up here you’d be off like a shot.

Felix: What if it’s my mother.

Ian: That’d be a different story.

Felix: Well yeah, but she’s a Swede; and they’re not all blonde haired and blue eyed. She’s a brunette… or grey now, whatever.

Ian: No, but it’s just the ideal of how… what everyone should be.

Felix: You’re just thinking about hot women. That’s not – You’re not talking about the Aryan master race.

Ian: Blonde hair, blue eyes?

Felix: Yeah, that’s what that is.

Ian: Just that.

Felix: What about that?

Ian: Just how he wanted – Just how he saw… or seen…

Felix: How he seen?

Ian: Or saw.

Felix: How he seen or saw…

Ian: … the ideal world.

Felix: The ideal world, full of Aryans. Yeah? Okay. So how did he – How did he go about making the world Aryan? Well… wait, no. Let’s just cut out the Aryan bit, okay? He wanted Aryans. Whatever. How did he go about taking over the world with his… with his posse; his mates.

Ian: Through… uh, simple terms?

Felix: Like you can come up with any other terms?

Ian: Through… gangs… who believed…

Felix: Gangs?

Ian: Yeah, I’m just doing it simple, like…

Felix: Like the Bloods and the Crips?

Ian: Yeah, the homies.

Felix: So he got together the boys. The boys in the hood. West Side Story.

Ian: Yeah. Morning glory.

Felix: That’s an Oasis album. I said ‘West Side Story‘, not ‘what’s the story‘, like ‘What’s The Story, Morning Glory‘. Right so, he got together with Noel and Liam Gallagher from Oasis…

Ian: Hahaha

Felix: … Himmler on bass, Haha. Goering on drums. Goering, or Goebbels? Whatever. Either of them. Maybe Goebbels was on lead guitar. Whatever. So, they set about making a record…

Ian: … to destroy the world?

Felix: To destroy the world. Kind of like… Nickelback.

Ian: Haha that’d be a good tune.

Felix: Hitler on vox.

Ian: Plus vocals.

Felix: That’s… what ‘vox’ is short for, but whatever. Hitler on vocals… with his little speeches.

Ian: Preaching… around. Getting people to believe in his, umm…

Felix: Yeah you keep – Okay, no. I’m talking about the actual war, not the build up. 1939 onwards. Everyone’s already – They’re already his groupies. He’s in the top spot, number one, top of the charts.

Ian: Ethnic cleansing.

Felix: Yeah…

Ian: Then he started to… like a plague.

Felix: … … … hahaha, like a plague.

Ian: … of hornets. Just going through -

Felix: Haha, a plague or hornets? Do you mean -

Ian: … or locusts?

Felix: – would be the conventional biblical plague.

Ian: Like a plague of locusts, spreading through different countries.

Felix: Like Poland, which you thought was Holland.

Ian: No, Poland – I dunno which one stated first but… Austria?

Felix: Austria? No, Hitler was already… pretty big in Austria. They were annexed to Germany in 19… 38, I think?

Ian: That was like his safe haven.

Felix: Okay. That was the recording studio? So he went through Poland to get to France.

Ian: Don’t forget Holland.

Felix: He didn’t go through Holland!

Ian: Yeah, ’cause you have to go through Holland to go to France.

Felix: You don’t, and it’s not called Holland anyway, it’s The Netherlands, and they weren’t invaded for a couple more years.

Ian: Okay, then… they managed to conquer… defeat… certain aspects. Then they came to a little bit of a river… English Channel.

Felix: Hahahaha, ‘a little bit of a river‘. Hahahaha, okay. He came to a little bit of a river. All right, and then?

Ian: He saw a little island.

Felix: He did. Hahaha.

Ian: … and he thought, ‘Okay, let’s have a crack at this.’ Then… he got involved with a bloke called Winston Churchill.

Felix: He did.

Ian: … while he was having a smoke… and a cigar.

Felix: … he was having a smoke and a cigar.

Ian: – and a pot of tea.

Felix: … and a pot of tea maybe, yeah.

Ian: – or a whiskey.

Felix: Or a whiskey. It’s irrelevant what he was drinking at the time of the invasion.

Ian: … and then he heard about this little son of a bitch called Hitler.

Felix: I’m pretty sure he was already quite well informed on who Hitler was after the previous five years or so.

Ian: … and he’s thinking ‘Ah. This son of a bitch wants to take my country like a locust.’

Felix: You’re… really hammering home the plague of locusts analogy.

Ian: Then…

Felix: D-Day?

Ian: D-Day. That’s a beach – That was like a… bit of a… a water-polo fight; or a beach volleyball fight compared to what’s going to kick off next.

Felix: Which was what? Stalingrad? No, that was before…

Ian: The Battle of Britain.

Felix: Oh right, okay. Well, so… is that like… regular volleyball in comparison to the beach volleyball of D-Day? Or some flying version of volleyball?

Ian: Clay pigeon shooting.

Felix: Right, so… but with people. It was essentially firing clay pigeons at other clay pigeons; but with people in planes… with guns.

Ian: Yeah… and then it got messy.

Felix: Then it got messy? Had it not been messy already for the last three or four years?

Ian: It’s been messy. Some things… you need to see, and… some things you see is not very nice.

Felix: What, like Auschwitz?

Ian: Been there.

Felix: Okay. Probably not in the same way as the other people had been there at the time, but okay. So, back to D-Day and The Battle of Britain. I’m not sure they were in that order, but whatever. I think The Battle of Britain was actually about two or three years before D-Day.

Ian: Nah, D-Day then Battle of Britain. Give or take.

Felix: Give or take.

Ian: Give or take a year or so.

Felix: Okay. Three years, and the other way around, but okay. Then what? Anything going on with Japan or America? Russia?

Ian: Let’s just concentrate on England and Europe.

Felix: All right, okay. Haha, ‘England and Europe’, but not Russia.

Ian: Yeah.

Felix: No, right… because they all don’t really matter in the grand scale of The Second World War then?

Ian: Hmm…

Felix: Haha whatever. Okay, so: Hitler’s on the ropes. New album isn’t selling well. What are his mates thinking? Well, Rommel died in ’44. I think. Maybe, Rommel might be still around at this point. I don’t know; I don’t give a shit.

Ian: Then they got one of his replacements, his understudy.

Felix: What, for Hitler? ‘Understudy’? It’s not – They’re not doing Hamlet. Whatever. So he got one of his backup singers..

Ian: Yeah, haha.

Felix: … to what? Pretend to be him?

Ian: To take on… his legacy, legend.

Felix: Wait, who are you talking about? You’ve lost me here.

Ian: I don’t know…

Felix: Who’s his understudy?

Ian: I don’t know. There’s always an understudy for somebody, but I don’t know who it was.

Felix: So did Hitler not really die in 1945? Is that what you’re saying?

Ian: Yeah, he probably did. Probably got assassinated.

Felix: Well, he didn’t. He shot himself.

Ian: His own assassination then.

Felix: I think they call that ‘suicide’.

Ian: I’d call it an own assassination…

Felix: Him and Eva Braun, his lady friend, killed themselves.

Ian: Groupie assassination.

Felix: It wasn’t an assassination.

Ian: Self assassination.

Felix: It’s – That’s called suicide!

Ian: Okay.

Felix: So is that the end of it? Any last thoughts? Describe Hitler in one sentence.

Ian: Tyrant?

Felix: ‘Tyrant’. Well, yeah, I guess. But that’s not one sentence.

Ian: One word.

Felix: Well yeah, but that’s not really a conventional sentence.

Ian: … … … Uhh, one sentence. A person that changed the world for what it is now.

Felix: ‘For’ what it is now?

Ian: Well, has it been now.

p: Has it been now? Okay?

Ian: Uhh… I’ll let you sort that one out.

Felix: Yeah, that’ll do.

____________________________________________________________________________

Well, that’s it from Ian today, but to probe deeper into his wondrous mind, click here for his full archive.

Customer: Hey there, good morning. I was just wondering if you had any of those little, white bags. I usually buy a couple each week for my shop.

Me: Oh, actually, no, I don’t! We ran out of them, so I only have the black ones.

Customer: Oh, right. Well they look fine. I suppose I could go black for a week.

Me: Ae you sure? I hear that afterwards you might not be able to go back!

Customer: Oh? Why’s that?

Me: Never mind (nervous laugh), it’s just a… phrase.

Customer: What… What phrase is that?

Me: Uhh… you know… ‘Once you go black…’

Customer: Oh, right; yes. Well… I don’t think it applies to bags.

Me: No… probably not…