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This is the story of how an uneducated Oxford pastry cook became
the first Englishman to fly, in a self-built balloon powered by
primitive, and potentially lethal, hydrogen. Despite taking off in
force 8 gales, crashing into hills and plopping into the Irish Sea,
James Sadler became a rare pioneering aeronaut to survive such
perilous ascents. Good luck was not hereditary; his son's balloon
fatally collided with a chimney. Sadler advanced the scientific
evolution of lighter-than-air flight, and took part in both of the
famous races that so captivated the public in late
eighteenth-century Europe: across the Channel, and the Irish Sea.
He earned Lord Nelson's endorsement for improving the Royal Navy
with applied science, created one of the first - perhaps the very
first - mobile steam engines and was revered by fans like Percy
Shelley and Dr. Johnson. Yet even the brightest stars one day
collapse, as Sadler's name emits virtually no light today. Like
Sadler, Richard O. Smith emanates from Oxford's Town not Gown. Like
Sadler, he wants to look down on Oxford - literally - and his
admiration for the balloonist culminates in him replicating the
first ever flight, also over Oxford. But there is a problem. The
author suffers from acute acrophobia, a crippling fear of heights.
This prevents him from standing on a stool, yet alone dangling at
3,000 feet beneath an oversized party balloon. To overcome his
chronic height anxiety, he seeks pre-flight counselling, learning
all about current understanding of phobias and anxieties. Here he
discovers that he is also bathmophobic - a fully-functioning adult
who is afraid of stairs. Inspired by Sadler, Smith sets out to
overcome his debilitating fear and ascend in a balloon over Oxford.
'Be positive. You just need a will to do it,' counsels a
psychologist. So, taking that advice, he starts positively, by
making a will.
Discover Oxford's amazing stories, from Z for Zoo (yes, Oxford once
had a zoo until three dangerous animals escaped) to A for Answers
(there's a quiz question for every letter). Revel in true tales of
Oxford's oddballs, pranksters, poets, murderers, explorers,
scientists, actors, criminals and politicians (there may be some
crossover here). Learn and laugh about Oxford's curious customs and
peculiar protocols. Its eccentric academics and funny fellows. Its
ancient university and even older town - and how they've often come
to blows. Find answers to the following questions: who burned down
half of Oxford cooking a pig? Which plant has killed more people
than any other, according to Oxford boffins? Who went to sea as a
pirate after graduating from Oxford? Which gruesome body part did
Lord Nuffield keep pickled in a jar in his bedroom? Which college
was put up for sale on eBay by rival students? Taking the reader on
a journey through Oxford's colourful past, this book brings to life
a city known around the world. With quirky illustrations and comic
tales, it offers a reading adventure that's informative and fun.
Repeatedly jamming his fork of curiosity into the live toaster of
opportunity, comedian Richard O. Smith captures the experience of
living in Oxford in probably the funniest book written about the
Dreaming Spires. Collected here are 70 of his best Oxford Examined
columns from the award-winning Oxford Times magazine Oxfordshire
Limited Edition including several previously unpublished stories.In
these unflinchingly truthful columns he meets celebrities (Kate
Middleton, Dara O'Briain, the one who plays Phoebe in Friends and a
predictably grumpy Alan Sugar), visits the 11th dimension with an
Oxford University maths protegee, gatecrashes Encaenia, flirts with
a Roman slave girl from 79AD, is ejected from the Oxford Union by
burly security, witnesses a comeuppance for a pack of arrogant
students, conducts a walking tour for Britain's scariest hen party,
moves a library (which transpires to be harder work than moving a
mountain), sees Britain's most pretentious theatre production,
participates in the UK's national bell ringing championships (yes,
that is a thing), allows Oxford University psychologists to
experiment on him, rescues four escaped horses in a busy Oxford
street (thankfully it wasn't the apocalypse), becomes a
crime-fighting superhero, is hospitalised in a serious bike
accident, gets chased by a furious revenge-fixated woman dressed as
a Friesian cow, strides out of his house one morning and disappears
down a giant sink hole, mentors two stand-up comedy virgins,
commits a devastating social faux pas and pledges to never use a
split infinitive or sentence this long again.
Shy boy Amadeo reigns supreme at table football in his local cafe.
Taking on all comers he is one of "the unbeatables" with his loyal
team of tiny foosballers. But there's another "unbeatable" in town.
Aggrieved by his only ever defeat at the hands of Amadeo in a
foosball match when they were kids, Flash the town bully returns to
seek revenge. Not only does he destroy the foosball table, but he
challenges Amadeo to a game of actual football. Amadeo has never
played real football - and Flash, with his insatiable quest for
glory, has subsequently risen to become the world's most famous
soccer star. With the future of the village at stake and his
foosballers scattered, the situation looks hopeless for Amadeo.
Unless he can recruit the help of his eccentric fellow villagers
and the girl he loves, Lara, to take on the world's best football
team captained by his nemesis Flash. And unless the foossballers
can be reunited. "It'll be like Barcelona against a non-league team
with an injury crisis," predicts Lara. What nobody predicts,
however, is how Amadeo's foosballers will affect the game...The
Unbeatables novel is the ultimate fantasy football story.Expanding
upon the original movie, the novel includes additional adventures
and characters. Written for young adults (and not so young adults),
the book is a scintillating, action-packed 90 minutes of end-to-end
incident, comedic flair, goalmouth scrambles and dubious off the
ball challenges on the ethos of the modern game
Standing in an ID parade of incompetence, waiting to be picked out
as Britain's stupidest criminal, we've assembled a line-up of
bungling burglars, asinine assailants and thick thieves. Dipping
their stolen bucket of opportunity into the well of other people's
stuff, only to fall into the well themselves (and get the bucket
stuck on their head), this book chronicles the crimes against
common sense committed by these dim-witted deviants. Also featured
in this compendium of criminal idiocy are: the bank robber who used
a No. 72 bus as his getaway vehicle (it was almost as though the
police knew where he was headed to next); the bag snatcher who
robbed an elderly lady of the bad she'd just used to clear up
responsibly after her dogs; and the burglars who left their
four-year-old son, and a wallet containing full ID, at the crime
scene. Also rounded up for routine questioning are the bank robbers
who gifted the police a dropped map marking the preferred route
from bank to hideout, and armed robbers who raided a laundry van to
steal used towels whilst their intended target, a wages van, drove
slowly past. Charged with being in possession of an idiotic plan
and sentenced to a life term of stupidity, they're reversing the
getaway vehicle into a police car and handing over their belt to
the custody sergeant with the inevitable consequence of their
trousers falling down. As thick as thieves indeed. It's a case
(admittedly, a rather easy one) for the police to dial M for
Muppet. This is an ideal gift book that will make you laugh out
loud.
Amazon no. 1 author and comedian Richard O. Smith is once again
sticking his fork of curiosity into the live toaster of
opportunity. Yes, that is quite dangerous. But he fears no extended
metaphor. Then one man scrapes the burnt bits of disappointment off
the dry toast of life. Once described as "a jam-packed jamboree of
jollity" by TV's Dr Lucy Worsley, Smith's latest comic essays build
upon the success of his previous book Oxford Examined: Town &
Clown ("An outstanding comic writer" - Countdown's Susie Dent).
Oxford hums with history and humour. So inevitably many of these
hilarious - but unflinchingly truthful - short stories occur around
his home city. They look at Oxford topics as diverse as
participating in a clinical trial, the dangers of cycling and
bizarre University rituals. Yet The Best Ladled Pans of Rice and
Penne is also written for a national (and international... let's
dream big) audience. Consequently the stories look at themes that
bind us all: the universality of dealing with a loved one's
illness, the death of a parent, meeting celebrities, rumbling
illicit lovers, encountering daily humiliation, dealing with
success and its constant pushy companion failure, and queuing to
meet a more successful bestselling author who turns out to be a,
er, dog. Okay, so it's mainly about encountering humiliation.
Britain is a nation of good sports - literally, it turns out, given
our country's wonderful array of eccentric and bizarrely inventive
pastimes. Yes, we know New Zealand are good at rugby, Brazil at
football, while Australia and South Africa were countries
specifically created for people who take sport far too seriously,
but have those sporty nations ever produced a World Champion Pie
Eater (OK, Shane Warne notwithstanding)? Has Brazil provided a F1
Pram Racing world champ? Has an Aussie won the World Nettle Eating
Championship? A New Zealander tossed his way to Haggis Hurling
domination? I can't hear you Johnny Foreigner, and I'm choosing to
interpret your silence as a 'no'. Because the truth is, ladies and
gentlemen of this great, mighty and resilient sporting land we call
both Britain and home, we have provided year after year, true world
champions in cheese rolling, competitive ploughing, medieval
football re-enactment and pram racing. We may not have produced a
Wimbledon Champion since the... er... the Wars of the Roses, but
put down your Jules Rimet trophy Brazil, hand back your Rugby World
Cup South Africa, and pick up your flonking stick - it's time to
learn about the sports that really matter.
Oxford University is famed for the intelligence and innovation of
its students. However, not all the undergraduates have devoted
their talents to academia; instead they spent their time devising
ingenious and hilarious pranks to play on their unsuspecting dons.
This entertaining volume recalls some of the greatest stunts and
practical jokes in the university's history, including those by
Oscar Wilde, Percy Shelley, T.E. Lawrence, Richard Burton, and
Roger Bacon. Ranging from the stunt that gave Folly Bridge its name
and a nineteenth-century jape that resulted in the expulsion of all
the students from University College, to the long-running rivalry
between Town and Gown and the exploits of the infamous Bullingdon
Club, "Oxford Student Pranks" will amaze and enthrall in equal
measure--and may well prove a source of inspiration for current
students wishing to enliven their undergraduate days.
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