"And the wise man did say when asked about the principle of self-sufficiency:
'Give a man a porn mag and he can
wank for a week, give a man broadband access to the internet and he can masturbate for a lifetime.'"
"Never trust a
duck with a match"
The origin of this ancient proverb, like so many others, has been lost to the mists of
time; recent archaeological findings, however, seem to support the predication that the provenance of the precept lies in 1st Century Rome, where the Great Duck of Saxony (later chronicled by Tacitus as the Surreptitious Duck of Saxony) - under the direction of Ambiorix,
Prince of Germania - managed to infiltrate Rome and set alight the South-Eastern quadrant of the Circus Maximus, causing
fire to disperse vociferously through the densely populated districts of Rome, leaving the city engulfed in flames for the next five days.
The eponymous
Duck, having assimilated himself into the backdrop of the Aventine under the pretence of being a
duck, obtained a match; from when and where he acquired the fateful match is unknown (eye-witnesses who survived the blaze claim to have overheard a person suffering from a
duck-like affliction asking for a match to light his cigarette), but what he then proceeded to do with it is unequivocal. Observing that the
fire was spreading quicker than he had anticipated, the
Duck flew to the safety of the Imperial Palace where he was accosted by the Emperor Nero, who - entranced by the
Duck's ebullience and duckish charisma - was inveigled into playing the lute as a celebration of the
Duck and all
duck-kind; all the while the
Duck had perched itself on one of the Doric columns to gleefully gaze down below to the sight of a carbonic miasma emanating from the fire consuming the streets and the tenebrous clouds of smoke piercing the crepuscular skies as the Great
Duck watched Rome burn.
