Bats

Ever since Professor Einrich Squeaktail's discovery in 1804 that the moon was made of cheese, it has been every mouse's desire to get there as soon as possible. This is a fact.

Many rodent flight attempts have been made over the years starting in 1815 when three mices decided to inflate themselves with helium and float to the moon. Unfortunately the results were disappointing as, just like humans, the meecels simply inhaled the gas and did Bee Gees impressions for the next forty minutes before falling about giggling.

The next flight test took place in 1839 when two excitable mousies from China attached themselves to fireworks and waited for New Year. It wasn't until the celebrations were underway that they realised they had stuck themselves to a Catherine Wheel and a Sparkler and NOT a nice big rocket. The subsequent coroner's inquest could not identify which bits belonged to each mousel.

After a dramatic pause and a big rethink, the next attempt took place in 1916 when Wilber and Orville Smartwhiskers made makeshift propellers from elastic bands and lollipop sticks, strapped them to their noses and threw themselves off the cliffs at Kittenhawk, USA. The calculations were slightly squiffy, however, and the two meece brothers ended up being screwed 3 feet into the ground.

With the advent of genetic research, mousie creatures have recently been more successful and have managed to graft leathery wings to their backs and call themselves 'bats'. These creatures (who only come out at night when the moon is easier to smell), have been spotted all over the world and their attempts at lunar conquest appear more steadfast than ever before.

Because of this, it has become every pussycat's responsibility to also achieve flight in order to continue chasing the rodents (as it is their duty to do). Thus in 1861 the Cat-a-pult was designed which allowed moggy cats to be thrust through the air in order to catch their smaller mammal adversaries. The results were disappointing.

Calling Dr Smy

Here in the UK the human non-fish types often seem to complain how long it takes to see a doctor.
This strikes me as particularly odd as there appears to be no shortage of them on TV.

Every third programme seems to be about some smooth boy-faced medical chap or a stern business-like lady doctor who often 'cares too much' and so shuts her emotions away...except in a longing close-up at the end where she sheds a single tear as the credits start.

Quincy M.D. is morbidly interesting as. despite doing only 3 minutes of actual 'doctoring' per episode, he appears to attract as many hot women each week as The Fonz despite having a head that resembles a turnip and a nose that would not look out of place in the local Toucan Sanctuary. He does have big feet though, so maybe that explains it.*

Doctor Gregory House is my favourite, however. His style is to wrongly diagnose each patient 7 times per show and then, at precisely 37 minutes into the episode, he has a breakthrough and realises that the reason little Barry's eyeballs keep expanding to the size of watermelons is because in 1996, he attended a Teenage Mutant Ninja Otter festival and was exposed to mutated otter pelt while holding a can of cherry Tizer in his left-hand.

The patients always seem to go through agony while Dr House and his perfect skinned, magazine-cover-sexy associates put them through pointless tests for the first 36 minutes and begs the question -why not just leave them in a quite room with a nice book about penguins for a bit while House makes us all a nice cup of tea and tells us a nice long joke for perhaps 36 and a half minutes?


*women are attracted to large feet as this means that they get to wear the large shoes when the man goes out of the room while doing a deep-voiced impression of their man and trotting about saying stuff like 'where's my paper?' and 'fetch me more beer'. This is a known fact.

Smylexx-Eve

Yes, it's that time of year again. The date that you've had circled on your calendar for the last 363 days is almost upon us; my birthday- tomorrow.

Although it's quite apparent that you've already bought my present and wrapped it, being extra careful not to crush the gold-leaf wrapping paper or to chip any of the encrusted 24 carat diamonds on the gift-tag, I thought I'd help those who were still struggling with the gift-choosing by providing you with a few handy tips:

1 x Puncture Repair Kit with a beach ball attachment would be most appreciated. Sadly, whenever i get a new beach ball, i tend to crush it or pop it in an excited moment usually when one of my scientist friends says something like 'Is it me, or is it getting 'otter in here?' or 'You know Colin, there really 'otter be a Fire Exit sign over that emergency door'.

1 x Lightly roasted salmon with dauphinoise potatoes. Obviously i wont eat the potatoes but i will look at them with delight as i gently nibble my salmon while extending my flipper in an over-posh way.

1 x Bedtime Stories book with waterproof paper. Some of the smaller fish tell me that they get a little scared at night. Unfortunately the thing they most fear is being eaten by me but perhaps a soothing story about bears might cheer them up a bit.

1 x otter sanctuary with 18 otters and a lifetime otter replacement guarantee so that if one of them slips off the little see-saw I'm making or squishes against a rock after bouncing too high off the little trampoline i made last week, I'd be sent a new one in the post.

I also expect a fish-cake with a candle in it. Hurry or you'll miss the shops!!

+4 Atk with 10% chance of creeping-you-out!

In hot Nerd News today it was announced that Gary (level 79 Paladin) Gygax has died.

This came as a shock to me and some of the smaller fish i was intimidating this morning as we always assumed that G. G. was immortal like that bloke from Highlander, Elizabeth Taylor and Colonel Sanders.

Mr Gygax was obviously a genius. Not only did his name end in the letter 'x' (which is a sure sign of superiority....or, at the very least, uber-smugness), but he also managed to sell us a rule book for a game that we then had to go and imagine by ourselves.

In my opinion, it's not really a game unless there is a board, some little plastic pieces (perhaps in the shape of otters or something) a pair of lovely dice and some cards with 'go directly to the little cupboard under the stairs and eat sherbet' printed on them.

Many nerdy-types will today be looking even more forlorn and unhappy than usual and will not be able to blame their demeanor solely on their intake of The Cure cd's, the lack of sunlight they absorb or the absence of hot nerd-on-nerd action.

So for one day only, don't poke your geek; love them. Hug your nerdiest friend and stroke their twenty-seven sided dice and their little lead gn*me figures. Ruffle their (slightly greasy) hair and even refuse to laugh when they drool uncontrollably at an old episode of Land of the Giants.

Happy dungeoning!

Let's get ready to er, erm... you know.

Three days ago we had an earthquake at the Leeds facility for Smart-Arsed Fish. It made me drop my milkshake and my porcelain otter collection rattled on the shelf which made them look as if possessed by evil, vengeful otter poltergeists.

Having done a quick inventory check, it became apparent that the little colourful fish, the nasty case of crabs and the twelve salmon were all unhurt... except for the three salmon i ate during the inventory checking...to keep my strength up, you understand.

What could have caused the earthquake though? I'm a simple fishy and don't understand these things. I've put it down to a few possibilities which are as follows:

Vanessa Feltz had fallen out of her water bed and managed to level half of Kent.

Two hundred angry squirrels had decided that 'enough was enough' and had planted explosives in the muesli factories.

An angry god had decided to smite us for making jokes about Jeremy Beadle's little deformed hand.

Two elephants were continuing their illicit affair and were having casual sex on top of a Ford Fiesta in a local car park...'cos elephants are dead classy like that.

Monsters from the planet Jellytot 5 had attempted to land their spaceship nearby but had forgotten to bother to check how big the planet was. In a huge error of judgement, they realised that the entire Earth was small enough for them to pop in their mouths and suck on like a fizzy gumdrop. They quickly scarpered off and turned their stereos down in order to be more discreet.

The planet's tummy rumbled while deciding whether or not to eat a small Danish girl for being too sparkly. After twenty minutes, the planet made the decision to open a bag of pickled onion Monster Munch instead.

Oink!

Many of the youth's pop-beat combos split up and then reform. Groups like The Spice Girls and Take That and even Pink Floyd have ended their extended retirements usually at the exact same time that a huge fat wad of cash is deposited in their bank accounts by a greedy, no talent music publicist.

One duet who wont be coming back, however, are Pinky and Perky. Yes, we all remember their beautiful high-pitched squeaky piggy voices singing our favourite tunes like a miniature angel who's genitals have been caught in a series of kitchen appliances but what happened to them after the music ended?

Their career was beautifully realised in the lyrics of Don McClean's American Swine and there has been many biopics and books but for those who are musically inexperienced, let me remind you of their downfall.

Pinky was, of course, famously arrested in 1979 for goading wolves into 'blowing his house down' - a sexual act so sinister that i simply cannot find the words to describe it. Needless to say, it involved a wolf, some 'huffing and puffing' and a piggy that squealed 'whee whee wheee' all the way home.

After his subsequent release, Pinky devoted himself to working with the starving children of Africa which went well for over three months until one of the children ate him.

Perky was the quiet one. He would often go to market and enjoy roast beef from time to time. It was rumoured that he invented the hula-hoop but this is unsubstantiated. After the music dried up and the fans moved on to other top animal pop acts such as Keith Harris and Orvile and Crazy Frog, Perky became restless and embittered and, on June 19th 1984* he took his own life by roasting himself in an oven at gas mark 4 for about 2 hours to ensure that his pork fat was extra crispy.

He was later served with apple sauce and roasted potatoes and eaten by the last 3 members of the Pinky and Perky fan club.

It's what they would've wanted.


*happy birthday Garfield

The Big V!!

10 things that you might not wish to say when picking up your valentine date:

What, you're wearing THAT?

Maybe i should go alone...

Have you gained weight recently?

Come on dragon face, let's roll.

I've got my granny and three of her bingo-friends in the car. You don't mind if they join us, right?

I think you should get a blood test....

Have you always had that mole???

Let's get this over with.

What? The yellow spot thing? Well the puss has stopped seeping now so i think we're good for another hour before it flames up again.

I hope you brought cash cos i'm hungry...

Roy

It might surprise you to learn that my favourite film isn't The Sound of Music or even Tarka the Otter (though that IS a close second), but in fact Jaws.

Sharks are a bit stupid and so any film that spends two hours planning and then killing one is obviously going to thrill me more than a day trip to a WeaselWorld theme park.

As we all know, sharks spend their time intimidating smaller fish (which should only be done by dolphins), looking a bit scary in wildlife films and also drawing male genitals with an Etch-A-Sketch...though that last fact isn't widely reported.

In the film Jaws, three men set off on an adventure to kill the evil willy-sketching, fish-bothering meany and along the way have a few arguments about the best way to do it while guzzling beer.

Mr Hooper is a furry, soft-handed scientist type. The only thing he manages to kill is the atmosphere in Chief Brody's dining room. He enjoys showing other men his instruments and scrunching plastic cups.

Shark killing ability: 2/5 - He doesn't kill a shark but he does manage to shove an air tank in a shark's mouth making it look like Clint Eastwood in those western movies.

Quint is a psychopathic loose-toothed nutjob who probably owns only own pair of undies. He knows over 28 ways to tie knots and over 2,904 dirty jokes about nuns. Has a tattoo which he claims he got in the military but everyone suspects that it was probably a picture of Betty Boop holding a squirrel.

Shark killing ability 1/5 -Manages to fire a few shots at a shark but eventually gets eaten by one that should probably enter next years 110 meter hurdles dash.

Brody is a chief of police who hates the water more than kittens in a sack. Knows hardly anything about sharks (not even that Etch-A-Sketch thing) and spends most of the film throwing rotting fish into the sea while daydreaming about old Pink Panther episodes.

Shark killing ability 5/5 Doesn't just kill the shark but actually blows it into 23,518 little fishy bits using just a rifle and a kick-ass line of dialogue. This makes Brody the poster-boy for every dolphin and a role model to us all, right?

Hail to the chief, baby!!

Slicey Slicey

When you human types aren't killing each other over who's got the best god or who likes oil the most, you also like killing each other over love. I adore otters but have never once wanted to kill anyone preventing me from using my season pass to the local otter sanctuary. Not that anyone would dare.

Anyway, this murderous streak is witnessed in all its lovely detail in the latest Tim Burton movie 'Sweeney Todd' which also carries the subtitle 'the demon barber of Fleet Street' in case we were confusing him with another Sweeney Todd, perhaps.

Personally i think there were many better titles that could've been used instead and i've compiled a list of a few alternatives:

For Your Pies Only

Mr Knife Guy

Live & Let Pie

Conan the Barber

The Wrath of Balm

Foam Hair to Eternity

I Love Stubble

Pies Like Us

In God We Crust

Eat The Parents

Half Baked

Cutthroat Island

Beard Science

I think you get the drift. I'll stop now because i can sense you lost interest after that Wrath of Balm one.

Smy Hard!

Just how many action movies have there been? I'd say at least 41. You bipeds really seem to enjoy watching other bipeds blow stuff up, don't you?

In the case of the ones Ive seen during my monthly barnacle-removal-treatment, there appears to be a set of rules that run through each of them which MUST be adhered to without fail.

First, our hero character must be 'burnt out'. He must smoke like a kipper, have a particularly vindictive ex-wife who has not only taken all his money forcing him to live in his car or a trailer or a scuzzy apartment but she's also taken custody of his kids...and probably *gasp* taken custody of his custard too. Our hero must rarely change his clothes and will probably need a shave (but will never grow a beard) throughout the entire film.

Our villain MUST be European- probably British or German and have a nasally voice or a lisp. A facial scar is also a bonus. He will show a complete lack of empathy for his fellow criminals in his gang and will probably kick a small puppy or spit at a photograph of Fozzie Bear in order to establish just how nasty he is. Loves Jazz and Classical Music, hates long walks on the beach and is most likely a Gemini.

Our hero will wish to work alone. In fact he'll insist on it to his boss. He'll also show a slight bitterness to modern liberal viewpoints before being shown his new partner who will be a lesbian/paraplegic/es panic/Jewish/hippy/left-handed.

The Hero's boss will be black (if the 80's) or fat and white (if the 90's) and will be just three outbursts away from a heart-attack. The Boss will usually have his office door knocked in (this is NOT a sexual euphemism, you flippin' perves!) by the hero at least twice who will harass the boss into either getting him off the case/demanding a warrant to search the villains lair/requiring 'more time' than the given deadline/getting the D.A. 'off his ass'

Despite all previous meetings with the villain, our hero will not arrest or, more likely, kill the bad guy until 102 minutes into the film regardless of how many crimes he's personally seen him commit. The villain must have had his gang shoot at the hero, blow something up, had a speedboat chase before grabbing a hostage at the end while laughing cruelly and saying something like 'eet seems that once again you are a fly in my ointment, you feeeelthy flat-foot!' or 'Thith time you will not thuctheed in dethtroying my dreamth, mithter politheman!' before attempting to make his last getaway.

Since all of the above is 100% accurate, why doesn't the hero simply get his partner to do all the required stuff then simply turn up at the 101st minute to make the arrest? He could visit the local Otter Sanctuary or make a paper maché womble or something equally productive.

Pringles!!

Once you pop, you can't stop. Well, that's what it says on the advert but if that's true, why do i always feel upset after I've put a tear in my beach ball after a particularly aggressive bouncing session?

The most fabulous thing about Pringles is that they arrive in a tubular package. If, like me, your diet consists mainly of small terrified fish and the occasional bit of chewy seaweed, you'll probably discard the crispy contents of the packaging almost immediately. This will leave you with a fabulous multi-purpose tubey thing!

'But Smylexx, you delicious and fragrant fishy love machine, whatever shall i do with it?' you may be asking.. well, here are my top suggestions:

1. Pop out the bottom of the tube and peer through it. See? It's an incredible telescope but, unlike normal, boring telescopes, this one doesn't magnify anything and potential causes eye-strain! Amazing!!

2. Put a series of linked tubes together to create an escape tunnel for Prisoner of War Otters who are still trapped in ferocious Nazi Weasel controlled camps in Berlin.

3. Sellotape 6 of them together and place a haddock inside one of the tubes. You now have your very own unique version of Russian Roulette. Take turns to spin the tubes and, if you're very lucky, find the haddock and eat it in one big gulp!

4. put a fluffy cover on the tube and thread some elastic through one end and turn it into a dolphin beak warmer for those frosty mornings on the oceans.

5. Use the tube as a jelly mould. When you have around 8 or 9 tubular jelly shapes, you can fashion them into a jelly Caterpillar...or a jelly tower....or a jelly sausage-link... or a jelly eel or maybe limb transplants for jelly babies with missing arms and shins. Or something.

The Smylex-X-Files

Woo-woowoo-woowoo-woooooo (doobededoobitydoobededoobity-bloop-bloop-bloop-bloop).

Yes, there are many dark and moody bits in my pool. Most of them are in the deep end or situated around the mysterious pebble and cause no end of spooky nervousness as you swim past them.

Some of the smaller fish report of a dark and gloomy castle in the middle of the pool. Tales are told of little salmon venturing inside and never returning! Possibly eaten by werewolves, abducted by space-otters or whisked off into another dimension. I prefer to call the castle 'home' though and my tummy can probably account for most of the 'disappearances'.

I do envy those sexy detectives on the videobox thing though - the ones that run through warehouses with a flashlight, occasionally stopping to flash the beam of light over a jar containing a pickled alien weasel baby hybrid or something. I expect there's nothing more exhilarating than being anally probed by Christopher Walken and some little grey creatures that resemble smurfs with no noses.

Unfortunately my scientist captors seems very dull in comparison and the most dangerous thing they seem to do is dare to eat the eggy sandwiches that Nigel's mum makes for him each Thursday.

I've asked for a pen-torch and a selection of clear plastic evidence bags but so far no one has taken me seriously... Just don't come running to me when your socks have been abducted by Yetis from the Glomph Dimension!

Smylexx Anniversary Holiday Special!

Goodness! has it really been an entire year of blogging? It most certainly has!

Over the past 12 months we've all sat down on Uncle Smylexx's slightly moist knee and discussed many topics including the fabulousness that is cheese, why robots in the future will be entirely gay, the secrets that lay within a kangaroos' pouch and how to test drive a badger.

Over the last year i even started my own religion, introduced new fish to the mysterious pebble (then eaten them) and learned over 2,681 new facts about otters (only 9,571,002 to go).

The next 12 months will, i'm sure, be just as startling and splendiferous and to celebrate this, i stayed up late last night polishing my Dolphin-o-Type 2000 (no, that's not a sexual euphemism, you perves).

One of the salmon who's name was probably Hugh (well, at least, that was the noise he made as i ate him) baked me a fish-cake to celebrate this important anniversary too.

Happy splashing, Kiddies!!

Duck Off!

You know how it is, you've just returned home after a hard day of swimming, leaping through hoops and generally looking super-smug and you're just about to start preparations for your fabulously unmissable dinner party when there's a knock on the door. You open it to find a flock of hungry ducks waiting to come in...but...but... no one invited the ducks!!

Of course you now have a predicament -how to rid yourself of hungry fowl without being rude and resorting to shooting them. We've all been there, haven't we? But with just 37 seconds of intense research, i have come up with a list of ways which will keep your party mallard-free:

1. Advise the ducks that your girlfriend/boyfriend/life-partner/other 'alf is a giant Bengal tiger who is expected home shortly after finishing a shift at the local abattoir. The ducks will probably shuffle uncomfortably for a bit before making an excuse to leave.

2. Welcome the ducks in but casually remind them that you're serving spaghetti. As we all know, ducks don't suck* and therefore find eating pasta to be a real chore. They'll probably stop for a polite aperitif before looking at their watches and leaving for 'another engagement'.

3. Dribble excitedly as you gaze at the ducks and take a long time explaining how the oven works. Invite one of the ducks to step into the oven while occasionally squeezing the others as you wipe drool from your chin. Keep glancing at the ducks and then at a box of Paxo Stuffing then back to the ducks again. The younger ducks will become flustered and within minutes will 'remember that they've left the iron on' and hurry off.

4. Look happy to see the ducks but advise them that, after dinner, all guests will be expected to engage in a whistling contest. As we all know, ducks can't blow and therefore will decline to stay. Ducks hate to lose competitions.

5. Greet the ducks but tell them that tonight's dinner is 'formal attire' only. Ducks own up to 41 pairs of jeans and t-shirts but never buy suits as the jackets tend to shrink and chafe when flapping about on ponds. The ducks may be dejected but will leave politely without fuss.

If all else fails and the ducks still refuse to bugger off, simply fake a brain-implosion and fall over. Allow some drool to spill out as you spasm wildly about a bit on the floor. Some ducks are quite wary of this and so it can take up to 40 minutes of groaning and flinching before they're all thoroughly convinced and eventually go.


*I may put that on a t-shirt.

Yogurt

There i was, swimming casually around in the shallow end of my pool looking beautiful while flicking passing salmon with my tail fin when i overheard one of my pool-cleaners (probably named Colin) discussing his lunch.

Apparently he had a cheese sandwich a small apple and a pot of 'yogurt'.

Having never heard of this mysterious item, i quickly researched it on the Dolphin-O-Type 2000 and it would appear to consist of cultured milk. But how does a person bring culture to milk i wondered. I'm guessing it would consist of the following methods:

Take the milk to a foreign movie. Something pretentious with subtitles all shot in black and white with lots of moody brunettes looking solemn while their perfect-skinned boyfriend discusses the complexities of what it means to be a man in an ever changing world. (Those German films that you watch alone don't count by the way)

Pop to a gallery and introduce the milk to a few paintings. Try and find the paintings surrounded by nerdy student types who are scratching their chins and saying 'hmmm....i think i understand what the artist was trying to say when he used that particular hue of pink'. The paintings found on proud parent's fridges don't count.

Take the milk on holiday to Rome. The two of you can look at the ruins, the architecture and the work of Michelangelo who apparently was an artist as well as being one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Spend an evening at the opera. For beginners, it's probably best to go for something light and fluffy and avoid the big hitters like Wagner as his operas tend to last for about 27 years by which point your dairy-based product may have curdled by the first intermission.

Does yogurt come in otter and chutney flavour?

Happy New Year!!!

Well, it's 2008 and that means that we're now only a few years away from wearing shiny metallic suits and living in tall spires that overlook cities enclosed in glass domes with holes in the top to allow passing space rockets easy access to our Mars colonies.

By now you human types have probably eaten too much, already failed miserably to uphold your New Years Resolution and found yourself smoking a cigar while indulging in dangerous sexual acts with a tropical mammal while wearing ladies underwear.

It's also that time of year when we take that rubbish present that gran gave you back to the shops and bought something you really wanted such as a beach ball (mine popped on Boxing Day after a particularly fierce bit of rubbing and squeezing), a selection of fresh fish or perhaps an annual pass to your local Otter Sanctuary.

Most importantly, however, it is also the time to reflect on your world and think of the people that you care about most...such as Colin the Pool cleaner or that beardy man that fills up my food bucket with tasty trout each Thursday.

Happy New Year fish and non-fish peeps!