The primary function of Varnum is as a lubricant. It is also believed to carry other benefits for the skin, but its lubricative properties remain at the forefront of public fondness for Varnum.

In 1947, school bus driver Derek Bridgeham made Varnum headlines when he successfully restored life to the seized engine of a school bus, using only a pot of Varnum. The PR machine went wild, catapulting the product into the markets of 17 other countries. Derek went on to host popular Saturday night show: “Saturday Night”.

Nowadays, Varnum survives mainly on the mother and baby market, though its plethora of anal-sex related gags helps drive extra sales through the stag-do market.

Varied Array is a spectacular natural phenomenon seen in the sky directly above the earth’s equator.

Believed to be a culmination of the Northern and Southern Lights, Varied Array occurs only on January 13th, February 29th, March 27th, April 1st and October 20th each year. Some believe it to resemble an image of American comedian Steve Martin.

Many early equatorial civilsations believed that Varied Array was just a portal into the heavens. In the 18th century, Varied Array was used for guidance on trans-atlantic shipping routes. This resulted in extremely heavy traffic on those five nights.

Mail order meat is, these days, a safe and good value option for buying meat, either for home or business. It wasn’t always that way, however.

When the idea of mail order meat was first conceived, roughly one year after the conception of the Post Office itself, it was merely an idea before its time. For a start, many people didn’t have computers. Those that did, did not know how to use them properly and often over-ordered. These gigantic orders often crippled the country’s farming system, often for months at a time.

Another factor was the delivery time. Often the warehouse was located several miles further away than the customer’s local store, meaning, by the time the meat finally arrived, it was never as fresh as the local butcher’s produce. This caused a dip in the number of ‘returning customers’.

The service was finally suspended after the King denounced its existence. His aide had ordered a batch of steaks which were brought from a warehouse some 100 miles north of the Palace. Upon arrival, the stench and the maggots had won the battle for survival, a scene which made the sheltered man quite ill.

Modern refrigerants and refridgerated trucks have now alleviated this problem, making almost anything available via mail order. Even wives.

How To Soap is a degree course offered by a number of United States universities.

The course, brainchild of hand washing legend Martin Wadsworth, offers students the chance to learn everything there is to know about lathering and rinsing. Alongside these practical skills, the course also covers the selection of soap in the store, the transportation of the soap to your home, opening or unwrapping the soap, hard and soft waters and the soaper’s ultimatum: to foam or not to foam.

Many parents were initially unwilling to pay for their child to attend such a course, but fortunately demand trickled in through a small number of scholarships. The merits of the course were spread via social networking sites and before America’s universities knew it, they had a hotcake on their hands.

A number of top institutions are currently developing a Masters programme for the course.

Rubber Garden Shoes were the 1967 release from crackpot inventor Yurges Morrison. Shunned at the year’s ‘National Invention Expo’ for being, amongst many things, ‘too rubbery’, the product marked the end of Morrison’s inventing career.

Responsible for many invention greats, such as the ‘Lazy Lucy’ (a small tabletop device that allows diners to easily reach their desired sauce and condiments, by way of a small rotating platform) and the ‘Corkchisel’ (a sharp, handheld device, offering users a truly unique way of removing a cork from a bottle), Morrison was shocked by critics’ opinions of his Rubber Garden Shoes.

Designed with a number of ‘aerating holes’ to alleviate the foot from disgusting sweat, the Rubber Garden Shoes idea was sold on to rival footwear inventor Croc McKenzie for a paltry $10. McKenzie simply waited 40 years and added a spectrum of colour options before re-releasing the item.

It was an immediate hit. Rubber was in.

Take a trip to your local supermarket and you will more than likely see a modern-day descendant of Trolley Man fighting their way across the car park, attached to a train of shopping trolleys.

Born Luke Dave Watkins, to seemingly normal parents, in 1907, Trolley Man was clearly no ordinary child. At the age of three, Luke clearly had no interest in his toys. Instead he would demand small pieces of wire, which he would use to weave small basket-like items.

By the age of five, Luke was into adding wheels to his creations. Aged just ten, he had developed a neat system allowing him to store the little trolleys adjacently and using minimum space.

It was clear that Luke had a special talent, a talent that could be put to good use at the brand new supermarket that just so happened to be opening on his 16th birthday down the road. The new supermarket had just put in an order for 200 trolleys, similar to Luke’s design, and needed someone to keep them in order outside the store.

Initially known as the trolley boy, Luke was such a success in his position at the supermarket he remained in the same position right through to adulthood, and beyond. Never was there a better job match. The work was largely autonomous and carried out alone, so his lack of social skills was never an issue; At no time was the employee required to handle food, so personal hygiene was never a requirement; Also, since the trolleys were the sole responsibility of the position, no intelligence, initiative or worldly knowledge was required.

One ‘talent’ that Trolley Man did possess was his striking good looks, which, when combined with the upper body toning brought about by the rigours of the job, rendered him an incredibly desirable catch: the first time, at least.

Such was Trolley Man’s desirability that, by the time he was 25, there was not a female in his 5000 strong town who had not ‘had their way’ with him. As usual, with this kind of promiscuity, seeds were spread. Today, it is believed there is not a single supermarket trolley attendant who is not a direct descendant of Trolley Man.

So next time you are out doing the shopping, and you see that grubby, young, socially impeded trolley clerk smashing their way through the car park with their giant steel caterpillar, give them a wink; For you know the story of Trolley Man.

The Muck Chuck was a special design of medieval catapult, designed for inflicting disgusting punishments upon enemies.

The Muck Chuck came in two varieties: Muck Chuck Original Long Range and, later, the Muck Chuck Close Up.

The long range edition was essentially a catapult, capable of firing a multitude of muck-types distances of up to 1500 feet (457 metres). Depending on the selected ammo, and the chosen spray settings, a variety of results could be achieved:  blindness and vomiting would result from a ‘fine spray’ of dog muck, whereas human muck set on ‘heavy load’ would achieve severe vomiting and often cause a retreat of the enemy.

The Muck Chuck Close Up was launched several years after its predecessor and was born of the increased number of prisoner catchings and desire for punishment. It was essentially a miniature version of the original design, calibrated for maximum efficiency and effectiveness at 20 feet (6 metres); It could pop a stool into a detainee’s mouth without the operator having to so much as look at the target.

Despite the technological advances in weaponry, the Muck Chuck remained in constant employment into the early 20th century, finally being taken out of service due to its futility against air artillery. Muck Chuck Close Up is still occasionally employed today, although only when the forces’ oppositional respect is below factor zero.

A Yeti Cooler is one of the few devices available in this technology-saturated world that simply does what it says on the tin: It keeps yetis cool.

Just as human beings need fans and air conditioning, yetis also need to keep themselves cool. Since the majority of human beings do not even believe in the yeti, classing the animal as little more than a myth, the market was left wide open for entrepreneur Daniel Keyes.

Keyes recognised that overheating is a common problem in the daily life of the yeti and providing them with a method of keeping cool represented a huge opportunity, particularly as there is no rich-poor gap in yeti society: they are all rich.

Laughed out of the patent office, Keyes made sure he had the last laugh. In a self-absorbed wealth-parade, he arranged for a metric tonne of bank notes to be dropped on the roof of the patent office late one night, rendering the patent office roofless. A point well made.

Despite the huge worldwide distribution of Yeti Coolers, no public member has ever reported to seeing one. Keyes has kept the Siberian showroom location highly classified and only yeti community members have ever been issued with log in details for the online store.

In 2001 a Daily Mirror reporter, dressed as a yeti, infiltrated the initial security parameters of the showroom, but was denied access further after a bank check revealed he did not possess the funds of a yeti. His ejection resulted in severe amnesia, though he is believed to be alive and well, albeit wandering the plains of Siberia aimlessly. Still in costume.

In the early 80′s Xan Campos decided for himself that he was the 2nd coming for communist Cuba’s people and decided to launch a campaign to take over the United States and spread communism throughout the world.

His life was full of sadness and depression that eventually led to his loving parody of Che Guevara becoming a serious attempt at fighting for the communist cause and ultimately ended in his tragic death.

Xan was a quiet child born to an former Cuban baseball star and a farm girl. He grew up in poor Havana. His love for music never veered beyond being able to keenly listen and his love for sport never went beyond watching his father throw balls towards his chubby face.

Overweight and depressed he found a hero in the great Che Guevara and in ’79 at the age of 19 he decided he would do something with his life and go on the road reinacting Che’s greatest moments. The dodgy wig and spotty complexion did nothing for the show except push it into strange comedic obscurity which ultimately led to greater depression and a reliance on precription medication.

In May 1981, Xan, according to close sources, was a complete mess, but this is when his greatest moment came. Armed with a can of spray paint he went about amazing an army of locals to help row across the sea for the attack on the United States with the intention of bringing Communism to the mainland before embarking on a worldwide takeover.

This attempt failed but the cause continued for another 4 years. In 1985 he had enlisted 3 people and set sail for the USA for covert operations.

He was never seen again. A few strange internet consiracy theorists believe he made it and some have even recently said that he is party responsible for the recent election of the more socialist Barack Obama.

‘Make A Fart’ is the only ever feature on popular children’s TV show Blue Peter to have received a complaint.

By the time presenter Marvin Thompson had finished his introductory link, which mentioned the upcoming ‘how to’ feature, 16’000 angry parents had telephoned the BBC to express their disgust at the programme’s content.

A further two promotions for the ‘Make A Fart’ segment occured during the episode, angering even more parents. By the time Racqui Wand came to present the ‘Make A Fart’ instructions, which made use of Blue Peter’s famous ‘Here’s one I made earlier’ line, the Television Centre had received roughly 90’000 telephone calls. Around 5’000 of them were from overseas or areas where television signals could not be received, which astonished programme bosses somewhat.

By the end of the 25 minute broadcast, The Daily Mail had published a front page complaint on the matter, which ended by calling for the heads of those responsible, the BBC had received nearly 1 million complaints, around half in letter form and commuters on the train home, who clearly hadn’t even seen the show, were calling to complain.

The Six O’Clock News that night opened with Thompson and Wand resigning from the show. Their co-presenter, Adrian Wilkes, later told how the experience drove him to a £3000 a day drug habit.