Great Britain: responsible for adopting the ise of the travel pillow for long car journeys, such wonders as Stephen Hawking’s brain, swearing for the sake of it as an art-form, and also home to my (now deceased) good friend Greta Britain. As well as having the best name in the world, Greta had, for many years, bequeathed formerly untold knowledge to this lucky writer who writes here before you now. And Greta had many things to say. One of these things was “don’t believe someone if they tell you something is ‘as easy as falling off a log!” For many years I had no idea what Greta was on about. Although her knowledge had never let me down before I couldn’t really believe this statement. Sadly, I thought she was just talking rubbish. That having a first name which was an anagram of the first word in
Great Britain had suddenly gone to her head–
Then one day I thought I am going to try and fall off a log, for Greta. (It should be known that I was very bored and slightly drunk–drunk enough to believe that the willpower of Great Greta was bearing down on me.
Here is how it went: 1) I tried to fall off a log and I could not. No matter how hard I tried, it was the hardest thing I had ever tried to do. First there was the initial fear, which was bad enough, then came the debilitating paranoia–and Greta was right! Those people were liars! Falling off a log, even while slightly drunk was the hardest, most terrifying thing in the world!
I never did try falling off a log again. In fact, I stayed clear off al logs. Especially the big brown ones which looked malevolent, beckoning me to sit and fall off them with their smooth, splinter-free bark–
