by Paul Gamble
56 Patent pending.
57 It wasn’t. His favorite film was Marathon Man.
58 Or perhaps a woolly mammoth.
59 For those of you who are wondering, clearly fish don’t need to drink water; otherwise goldfish would end up living in empty bowls.
60 Which, incidentally, is the only reason Jack had never won a television singing competition.
61 For those of you who are wondering why the Misery’s MP3 player was waterproof, the reason is simple. Not only did the Misery like to listen to his music by himself, but he also liked to listen to it when the sky was dull, overcast, and full of rain. Frequently in a graveyard, if there was one nearby that was not too full of teenage Goths. The popularity of the Goth movement in recent years, combined with the increasing fashionability of being cremated, has led to an increasing problem of graveyard overcrowding. This is a serious matter that will soon have to be addressed by the Supreme Goth Council. Because it’s almost impossible to be moody and alone when sitting in the dining area of a Subway sandwich shop.
62 Which at this stage was, thankfully, still on the inside of his body.
63 For those of you who were wondering what Jack’s father’s mustache was thinking about while his mother and father were doing their daydreaming, it would have been contented with a small purpose-built mustache comb and a lifetime supply of Captain Fawcett’s Moustache Wax. Like all the best mustaches, it was a mustache of humble and simple tastes.
64 For those of you who have never seen a jigsaw puzzle before, they look a bit like what happens to an iPad’s screen if you drop it from a significant height.
65 Basically a paper clip is just a broken piece of wire. You’d be surprised how many inventions are just other inventions that have been broken or damaged. The first sandpaper was just flypaper that had been dropped at the beach. A sprinkler system is just a leaky hose, and Post-it Notes were originally dollhouse wallpaper, but they couldn’t get the dollhouse wallpaper paste to be strong enough.
66 Like, you know, actual static. Not the superhero Static. It’s all in the capitalization.
67 After the event Jack wondered if David’s clumsiness could actually sense an earthquake ahead of time and was falling down as a pre-emptive measure. It was a bit like a dog barking before a storm, or cows lying down on grass before it started to rain.
68 It should be noted that seals are actually amongst the world’s best clappers. The reason for this is that it used to be the case that, when seals went to the theater, they were always in the royal box. Because other people would watch and see what the people in the royal box enjoyed, the self-conscious seals clapped very hard for every act and became extremely skilled at this. The reason seals were allowed to sit in the royal box will only become clear later in our narrative.
69 It should be noted that all anchors look like the shape of an enormous arrow. This is to make a hundred percent sure that sailors know which way they should throw them over the side of the boat.
70 If you are wondering how weird it felt for Jack, it’s the same kind of feeling that you get when you suddenly realize that your tongue is clearly too big for the inside of your mouth and you can just feel it all lumped up in there. And it means that you become incredibly self-conscious about it, and when you try and talk you start mumbling and … oh no, now it’s happened to me.
71 This sentence makes no sense. Seashells are fish armor. Therefore, what I’ve essentially said here is that it was filled with armor made out of fish armor. Which is a bit redundant when you think about it.
72 Jack is wrong. It was just a very large storeroom. A giant storeroom is one where you store giants, or one where giants store their possessions. You can always tell if it’s a giant storeroom as they have special velvet compartments for giants’ cufflinks and hens that lay golden eggs. Generally speaking, a giant storeroom will also smell slightly of beanstalk.
73 Some people wonder where the phrase “the light at the end of the tunnel” comes from. It comes from when people are in tunnels and they see the light at the end of that tunnel. Some people wonder about the stupidest things.
74 Jack wondered why it was gray-and-white speckled. It was a strange pattern for a fish. In many ways it reminded Jack of a dappled horse. He was right in assuming that there was something “horsey” about the narwhal.…
75 If only a single flip-flop was lost, they would probably be looking for a particularly unfortunate pirate horse.
76 Some of you may wonder where the expression “skin of his teeth” comes from. It’s perfectly reasonable to wonder about this. It’s a much more complicated expression than “light at the end of the tunnel.” So go ahead and wonder about it. I’m not going to stop you.
77 It is interesting to note that at the moment Jack was thinking this, his first baby tooth was part of the C key on a piano onstage in the Ulster Hall and was being used to play “Sono Andati?” from La Bohème. Which is a very sad song indeed.
78 Jack later reflected to himself that, what with the pirates he’d had to battle the previous week, Ministry work seemed to entail a high risk of losing eyes. He decided if he made it to a third week in the Ministry he would almost definitely buy himself a pair of goggles.
79 Many of you will have wondered where Jack got this amazing plan from and how it was related to the loss of his first tooth. The answer is simple. Imagine that the narwhal horn was Jack’s wobbly tooth, the cable was a piece of thread, and the anchor was a door handle. I’m sure you can put it together yourselves from there.
80 Few people realize that humans generally think better when they are sweating. This means that you should never put someone who is calm in charge of your army. Calm people never panic and therefore think things through slowly. People who are panicking think quickly, have a dozen ideas racing through their minds at once, and then can easily pick the best one. (Of course, panicking is still potentially fatal if you’re underwater.)
81 This is called a tautology. A tautology is when you say the same thing twice but using different words. So for example a shrewd businessman is pretty much exactly the same as a psychopathic maniac. Other tautologies would include an evil gym teacher or an annoying daytime television host.
82 As was noted earlier, the walrus is the Tooth Fairy’s second-favorite marine animal—clearly the narwhal is his first favorite.
83 In fact, often the parts that caught fire also smelled bad. They smelled of burning Northern Ireland. Which was a bad thing.
84 Although Jack ignored this suggestion, luckily he remembered it later, as it would prove absolutely vital.
85 This was a bad simile for Jack to use.
86 Told you so.
87 This was further proof that Northern Ireland was a truly unique place in the world. Nowhere else would a maritime disaster that killed hundreds of people be considered something good to teach elementary schoolchildren about.
88 She was careful to ensure that it didn’t slide over any other plates and thus cause an earthquake.
89 It is worth noting that if inflatable alligators had been available during the reign of Emperor Tiberius, then many more gladiators might have gotten out of the arena alive.
90 For those of you who think that I’m going to reveal the answer to the question, you are quite mistaken. You’re just going to have to read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy yourself.
91 Jack did not realize how important this realization was, but ultimately it would be a thought about glove puppets that would save Northern Ireland.
92 Interestingly enough, the electrical wires weren’t really being used for what the queen of Atlantis thought they were. But their real purpose wouldn’t be revealed until Ministry of SUITs 3.…
93 Secretly Jack was wondering to himself if the Causeway had really been a causeway built by a giant. Although it was kind of all over the place, so it would have to have been a giant with poor building skills.
94 And not nearly as much fun.
95 For those of
you who are wondering, Jack’s mother watched far too many surprise property-makeover shows. Jack always wondered how people got away with breaking into someone’s house and changing everything without their permission, and then were never arrested. Jack had an idea that you would be able to get away scot-free if you burglarized Fort Knox, as long as you left a few throw pillows and a cast-iron pergola in place of all the gold.
96 Okay, technically a mammoth isn’t a mastodon. But I just wanted to use the word because I like it. It kind of rolls off the tongue. Mastodon.
97 CQD stood for “Come Quick, Danger!” Actually that isn’t true at all, but the real explanation is a lot more dull.…
98 It should be noted that it’s difficult enough to keep your legs in sequence when you only have the two of them. This is why, when they’re marching, soldiers have someone shouting “left, right, left, right” beside them just to make sure they’re getting it in the right order.
It’s also why they don’t have a 100-meter conga line at the Olympics. They did try it in 1928 when the Olympics were in Amsterdam. However, the experiment wasn’t repeated after a conga-line pileup seriously injured sixteen people. Which is a shame, as it was a lot of fun and they were only people who did P.E. for a living.…
99 It should be noted that spiders do not actually shoot webs out of their bottoms. They come out of the spinneret glands at the bottom of their abdomens. However, after all the time wasted with introductions Tim decided to let this point of detail go. They clearly didn’t have the time to spell out “spinneret” or “abdomen.”
100 This is a vital life lesson to learn. When you’re doing something, always do it very badly the first time. That way even if you only try a tiny bit the second time it’s still going to seem like an improvement.
101 It is interesting to note that one of the ways that Houdini used to get out of straitjackets was to dislocate his shoulder. Given the repetitive strain injury that Jack will eventually develop from Trudy continually punching him in the shoulder, this is a skill that Jack may well gain over the years.
102 I think it’s fairly safe to assume here that Jack will turn out to be very wrong indeed.
103 You might think that it’s a great thing to be able to speak Morse code, but I really wouldn’t advise it. It’s a language that consists of bangs and rattles. At first it seems like fun, but the other day I got involved in the most unpleasant argument with a woodpecker who was using language that you wouldn’t expect from a sailor.
104 It should be noted that spiders generally aren’t very brave. But this is of course because they are invertebrates. They literally lack spines. In the same way amoebas are generally gutless and bees have been known to have a yellow streak.
105 Jack wasn’t quite as frightened as he should have been at this stage. There was a small part of him that had seen magicians’ assistants being cut in half for years and afterward they always seemed to be fine. A very small part of him believed that would be the case with him.
106 He wouldn’t, although it would have allowed the queen to bend him into a more interesting series of shapes.
107 Interestingly enough, the second-most preposterous slow-motion chase was when Dr. Who was on crutches and was chased up a slight incline by a Dalek. Why did the Dalek have such difficulty with the incline, you may ask? Well, this was back in the 1960s before the Daleks had the optional extra of leather trim and a fourth gear.
108 NOTE TO SELF: When they’re making the poster for this film, suggest the tagline “Underwater: No one can see you cry.” SECOND NOTE TO SELF: Check with lawyer to make sure Ridley Scott and Sigourney Weaver won’t be able to sue.