"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.
