Birds of Prey
Enjoy an encounter with some of the world’s most fearsome aerial predators as our Master falconer Ernie Yoopis introduces you to the ostrich, swan, albatross and goggle-eyed vulture, to name but a few. You will have the opportunity to jump from our highest trees with a marabou stork on each foot and an emu on each shoulder. Imagine the exhilaration of flying through the air at speed and enjoy the sight of the rapidly approaching ground as you and your new bird friends squawk and screech with fear. An unusual and exciting experience.
Archery
Gasp at the brilliance and partial accuracy of our top archers as they fire their mediaeval arrows with razor sharp points at targets over ten feet away. Our archers are handpicked from Gubbenstery’s prisons and trained for over an hour in the ways of the bow and arrow. You will be firmly bound using razor wire to a revolving target made of hay which will then be spun by a tractor engine at over 5,000rpm. The archers will then fire 100 arrows at you and hope to hit the areas of the target made of hay. You will be amazed at the excitement you can generate as you watch the deadly arrows hurtling towards you. An experience not to be forgotten.
Drawbridge Trips
Maximize the thrills of a castle visit by partaking of a drawbridge trip. You will be fully fitted with our heavy wooden gliding wings and strapped into the special drawbridge firing chair. The drawbridge will be wound back until the heavy duty springs are loaded with maximum torque. Our expert will set fire to the restraining rope and you will be able to watch it slowly burn right through. Suddenly and without warning the rope will snap, thereby releasing the huge spring mechanism and you will be hurtled skywards at over 300mph. At maximum altitude (around 5-6,000 feet) it will then be up to you to release yourself from the firing chair, adjust the wooden gliding wings for optimal aeronautical manoeuvrability and plot a course back to earth. Initially the views are spectacular.
Big Beatrice
Pay a visit to Big Beatrice, the world’s most powerful cannon. Used in the Middle Ages to repel attackers and destroy whole armies of invaders, Big Beatrice can fire a one ton cannonball twenty miles in five seconds. Gubbenstery Castle is fitted with one hundred cannons but Big Beatrice is by far the most powerful and certainly the most feared. You will be loaded into Big Beatrice feet first while wearing a special protective shirt and tie and matching paper helmet. When our chief marksman lights the fuse you will only have to wait two seconds before being launched parallel to the ground at over 1,000mph headfirst towards the derelict buildings on the outskirts of Gubbenstery. Our chief marksman is very precise and you will land safely on a pile of bricks next to the mattress factory. There is a handily positioned bus stop only three miles from your landing site and you will be back at the castle within three hours using the number 62 bus. A challenging and rewarding experience.
Authentic Castle Memorabilia
Make your way to the central courtyard and take advantage of genuine castle memorabilia such as one quarter scale models of the castle, swords, mallets, daggers, battle axes, bludgeons and fully working flails, all at original prices. Also, why not accept with our compliments, a free of charge, life-long memento of your visit by being branded. Our genuine furnace-heated branding irons will leave you with a beautiful reminder of your trip to Gubbenstery Castle. You will be locked down in authentic mediaeval stocks with your shirt off while the branding iron, with the one foot high letters GC, is made red hot in our authentic gas-fired furnace. Our expert brander will then accurately align the red hot branding iron and push it powerfully into your flesh. Only one minute later the iron will be removed and you will be doused with vinegar and chilli powder to cool the small degree of localised excruciating pain. Our authentic mirrors will reveal to you your fantastic third degree burn-based tattoo and all free of charge. (Women must remove their bra).
Diving and Canoeing
Water sport lovers will be able to take part in diving and/or canoeing while visiting Gubbenstery Castle. Diving platforms have been installed all along the top of the castle walls and keen divers will be able to dive down the half mile distance into the moat. To make the dives more exciting, canoeists will be randomly positioned in the moat and it is up to the diver to avoid hitting them. On entry into the water at around 120mph, the successful divers can attempt to harpoon some of the many crocodiles, sting rays, electric eels, sharks and box jellyfish that inhabit the moat. A beautiful one inch replica of the castle hand-crafted from rubber and concrete will be given to anyone who can harpoon eighteen or more separate moat-dwelling animals. This activity certainly cools you down in the hot weather.
Gubbenstery Castle does not charge an entrance fee and is run solely on a donation system where visitors are asked to offer a donation of no less than £25 and no more than £75,000 per person per visit per hour.
Gubbenstery Castle, 51 Fippery Avenue, East Gubbenstery.
Football Round Up
Gubbenstery and District
By our stick-the-boot-in reporter Jethro Matabeleland
Gubbenstery United 11-0 Glord City
This game, played in front of a sell-out crowd of 65,000, was a record-breaking match for several reasons. Firstly, it is the Gubbs biggest ever win against the Glords in 150 meetings. Secondly, it is the first match in the history of professional football where all eleven players in a team have scored. Even the Gubbs keeper Ricky Guntor and their worst player, defender Gary Pontium, got on the score sheet. Centre back for the Glords Ralph Barbarism was sent off after one minute for attempting to poke the referee’s eyes out, following a yellow card. This was exhibition stuff.
East Buntyside 1-0 Pollerang
The Bunts halted a run of five straight defeats with a hard fought win against the Polls. The home side thought they had taken the lead in the fifth minute when Greek striker Finbarr O’Shaughnessy had the ball in the net. However, he was adjudged to have used a ball he had hidden up his shirt and booted it into the net when nobody was looking. After his inevitable yellow card he stormed off in a mood and went to the pub. Midfielder Roy Foppity made the decisive breakthrough for the Bunts in the 90th minute when he punched the ball into the net direct from a corner. The referee had been waving to his girlfriend in the crowd and completely missed the handball.
Blurting Town 2-2 Arsene Villa
This highly entertaining game proved to be virtually a one-man show. The Blurts’ new German signing Horst Chestnut displayed all his skills and proved to be well worth the £600 transfer fee. Villa were two up at half-time through goals by Spiggle (13) and Spoggle (39) and were comfortably in control of the match. The introduction of Chestnut at half-time proved decisive. This six foot five inch muscular monster of a man from Bavaria took no prisoners. With the ball at his feet he simply ran straight at opponents and trampled over the top of them. He was booked twice for over-aggressive tackling and biting but the referee forgot to send him off. He scored in the 70th and 80th minutes, leaving a trail of hobbling, bloodied men in his wake. When Chestnut confronted the keeper he simply lashed the ball as hard as he could via the keeper’s face into the net, knocking the goalie senseless on both occasions. A terrific encounter.
Goriton Kickers 0-0 Skonkage Inmates
This shameful match started badly and got worse. As the players exited the tunnel, one of the Goriton players was slashed with an open razor, resulting in Terry Bubbington of Skonkage receiving a yellow card before he set foot on the pitch. This was a brutal kicking match from start to end. When the teams realised how lenient the referee was, they went berserk. Players were elbowed, punched and kicked and one was set alight in the centre circle. The second half started with the Goriton keeper and the Skonkage centre forward trading punches in the six-yard box. This was obviously planned since they were both wearing boxing gloves. Neither team could score as they appeared to be preoccupied with grievous bodily harm. This unsavoury debacle resulted in the pioneering trial of using a blind referee being suspended.
This Year’s Pub of the Year Wi
nner
The Cat and Dog Home Inn
By our tavern and saloon correspondent Jinty McGill
The Federation of Licensed Victuallers Associations (FLVA) of Great Britain has announced that the winner of Pub of the Year is The Cat and Dog Home Inn, located in the East End of Glasgow. This traditional Scottish boozer is run by Billy and Lee-Anne Residue, who were born and brought up in Glasgow’s East End. In his younger days, Billy was a bit of a scoundrel and cheeky chap. He was regularly involved in fights and on one occasion shot a man up the anal passage with a harpoon gun. He was convicted of GBH and given six months in Scotland’s notorious Whoopsadaisy Maximum Security Prison. It was while he was incarcerated that he met Lee-Anne, who was attached to the prison as Professor of Aggravated Assault. Billy served one week of his sentence before being released for superb behaviour. On the outside, he immediately married Lee-Anne and they opened the CADHI at 29 Harassment Street the very next day.
Of all the thousands of candidate pubs across the UK, why did the judges choose The Cat and Dog Home Inn? I spoke to one of the three judges, Reginald Vimvium, a professional steam salesman from Denmark. He told me the thing that impressed the judges most about the CADHI was their contemporary minimalist approach. Never before had they seen a pub stripped to the bare bones which reflected a bold statement of modernity. He said that many of the candidate pubs they visit are boring and try too hard to impress. This was definitely not true of the CADHI. In his own words, Mr Vimvium described the CADHI as a large room containing a lot of people, some liquids and little else.
For starters, they only serve a strictly limited selection of drinks. You can get lager, heavy (a dark, pungent Scottish drink), whisky, vodka or fortified wine. Mixers available are lemonade, orange squash or lime cordial and that is it. This pared down selection of beverages really caught the judges’ eye as a symbol of uncluttered free-thinking and avant-garde innovation. This fresh approach adopted by Billy and Lee-Anne is also exemplified in their modest menu. Classic dishes available are pie and chips, pie, beans and chips, pie and beans or chips. These are the only four dishes available in the CADHI and all are beautifully hand crafted from pies, frozen chips and tins of beans. Each of the dishes can be accompanied by tomato sauce or brown sauce and salt and vinegar. The stripped out nature of the CADHI means there are no tables, chairs, cutlery or napkins. Food is tenderly prepared in a high-powered microwave oven and served on a blisteringly hot plate. The boiling plate is balanced in one hand and the food is shovelled up using the other hand. A top tip is to eat really quickly to reduce the level of burning and blistering to the hand holding the plate.
The three judges spent a Tuesday afternoon from 2pm until 5pm in the CADHI and were amazed at how busy it was. Drinkers were standing elbow to elbow and it was ten deep at the bar waiting to be served. There was no TV or music of any sort in the CADHI, but, according to the judges, the noise was deafening. People were shouting from one end of the pub to the other in incredibly loud and strident voices, using some sort of quaint local dialect. Laughter was raucous and outbursts of ear-splitting yells and roars were almost continuous. Women shrieked and giggled, with some of them having strangely deep and coarse voices. Traditional foul language was incessant, adding to the character of the establishment.
An unusual aspect of the CADHI was that it also appeared to double up as some sort of very popular indoor market. A colossal number of goods were continuously handed around, with a never ending supply of money changing hands. In the short time the judges were present they saw jewellery, alcohol, items of clothing, different types of weapons and even foodstuffs such as fish and chickens being bought and sold. Another interesting component of the CADHI was the frequent staging of mock arguments and fights. This was obviously arranged to exemplify the camaraderie and togetherness of this long-established typical city centre tavern. Although only make-believe, the fights and disputes did have more than a hint of authenticity to them. Most of the punches and head butts were very realistic and the occasional use of open razors really added to the excitement of it all. Open wounds, broken noses, gouged eyes and split heads were very realistic and it was obvious that great attention to detail had taken place to make these altercations actually look convincing. The trendy, minimalistic approach taken by Billy and Lee-Ann continued to be demonstrated in the toilet facilities. There were no toilet seats, toilet paper, cubicle doors, soap or sinks. The men’s toilet had one aluminium trough for peeing into and no toilet pan. The ladies’ had one cracked toilet pan within a doorless room. Both facilities had obviously been doused in some sort of up market designer fragrance to mimic the stench of a turn of the century-style foul-smelling toilet.
Another of the observations made by the judges was that every single person in the CADHI chain-smoked. Each cigarette was lit using the previous one, which created a dense fog of smoke in every corner of the pub. The choking, stinking, unhealthy conditions truly recreated a nostalgic atmosphere of yesteryear and conjured up images of smoky, begrimed public houses of the past. Billy and Lee-Anne further enhanced the warm and friendly atmosphere of the minimalist ale house by allowing dogs on the premises. On the day of the judges’ visit, they counted about ten dogs sitting at their owners’ feet gasping for air. They were regularly fed tasty nibbles such as old pie crusts, cold chips and large bowls of strong lager. The dogs certainly added to the general homeliness and conviviality of the place. It was only on many occasions that some of the dogs would aggressively snarl at each other and periodically bite customers.
The judges unanimously chose the CADHI as Pub of the Year winner because it deconstructed the modern drinking establishment and peeled back almost all of the modern day contrivances that can detract from the basic premise that a visit to the pub should be an enjoyable and uncomplicated experience. Billy and Lee-Anne were amazed that they had been chosen and immediately asked if there was any prize money. When told of the £10,000 first prize, they asked if they could have it in cash there and then. On finding out it would take several weeks for the winner’s cheque to be sent out, Billy and Lee-Anne simultaneously blurted something out in their quaint local swearing language and disappeared upstairs.
Underwear Monitoring Equipment
Robust and virile man (not woman) required to act as housekeeper for retired gentleman. Daytime duties will include walking the ostrich, feeding the houseflies and monitoring the biting pressure of my four Rottweilers. Night time duties will be completely different. Write to Sir Gaylord Bloodthirsty, Fruity Mansion, 69 Dismember Road, Glord.
Experienced Policeman/woman required to join Gubbenstery police force (Highly Vicious Division). Must be very experienced in linoleum, loft conversions and sticking the boot in. This is a demanding role and those afraid of anthrax and nitrogen should not apply. Send your CV to Superintendent Guppy O’Gupson, The Police, 999 Rozzer Street, Gubbenstery.
Receptionist required for busy City Centre Mafia Office. Duties will include knowing nothing about anything, forgetting when things happened, not recognising anyone and making the tea. Overtime available at odd hours of the night. Fluency in Italian is essential. Contact Luigi The Eviscerator Barzetti at Bertolini’s Spaghetti House. Use back door and knock five times.
Getaway Driver wanted for unannounced visit to bank. Must be time-served. Must have short-term lease on vehicle and be free on Aug 4th. Overalls, gloves and facemask of the giant Amazonian river otter will be supplied. Probationary period of six months must be served. Pop into The Bloodball public house any evening and ask for Big Humphrey (Shooter) McGurk.
Articles of Interest
Human Physiology:
Part 1: The Mind
By our medical man Dr Rudolph Hatemonger
The mind is the inner part of the head, adjacent to the brain but quite distinct from it. The brain sits in the centre of the head whereas the mind surrounds it, filling all the extra space with mind cells. The mind was discovered in 1850 by the world famous Professor of Neuteronomy, Hortence S
cratiny. The discovery was made quite by chance by Professor Scratiny as she was clipping her toenails and sanding down her big powerful legs. She realised, as she sat on her favourite bench outside Gubbenstery’s world famous Anal Lubricant Research Centre, that she had something on her mind. This was a eureka moment for the talented scientist and she quickly deduced that the mind must exist. What she had on her mind was that she had forgotten to buy a new hat for her neighbour’s husband’s wedding. She quickly realized that the hat would have to wait because she would need to write a scientific paper on the mind and get it published before anyone else. She put her clothes back on, re-lit her pipe and set off for the university library to write her masterwork. After calling in at seven or eight public houses she finally made it to the library. Although she was now roaring drunk, she put pen to paper and set about cementing her place in medical history.
For the next ten years, Professor Scratiny became obsessed with the mind. This led to the break-up of her marriage to the brilliant ballerina Roger Nimble and the removal of her ten children by the authorities due to neglect and malnutrition. However, Hortence carried on regardless and by the summer of 1840 she had finally completed her life’s work. It was declared a masterpiece of scientific thinking and child neglect by the scientific community and she was immediately awarded the Honey-Boy Zimba Prize for an outstanding contribution to higher learning. Professor Scratiny never married again but she did have a few affairs with sailors and married men, resulting in the propagation of another ten illegitimate children. Her work on her revolutionary paper took its toll on the promiscuous and unchaste scientist and she first fell into decline and then down some stairs. She died alone in the winter of 1830 at the tender age of 97 while snowboarding in the Andes with her mother. However, she left us with a dazzling milestone in scientific publication even though she never did buy her wedding hat.
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