Wikimedodah

Simon Holder (born 13 May 1643) is Meritorious Practitioner of Murphy's Law at the University of Fotheringhay, a post for which he has drawn a salary for many years without anybody knowing what he actually does. Holder recently noticed that too many pairs of his trousers has taken to doing impressions of cheap hotels. A noted expert in alternative realities, it is rumored that he has discovered the means to escape the constraints of time and space, although he has yet to publish on the subject.

Contents [hide] 1 Biography 2 Education 3 Early Life 4 The 18th Century 5 The 19th Century 6 The early 20th Century 7 Dried Frog Pills 8 Evar 9 Notes 10 References 11 External links

// Biography

Holder claims to be born somewhere in England on 13 May, 1643. While being very insistent that the 13^th May is his birthday, he has nothing to support his claim to being the world’s oldest man. He has a brother and sister who are both over 315 years younger than himself, a fact he puts down to his parents discovering yoga and monkey gland injections in their twilight years. After school, Holder held short lived careers as a Forest Ranger and in Local Government before finding that computers have no discrimination towards reality hopping.

All of Holder’s theories on reality have been published on the internet. It was by pure chance that these were discovered by luminaries at St Wayne’s College,  the University of Fotheringhay, who offered him the chair of the newly formed Reality Studies school.

Education

Holder came very late to education, starting school in the 1960s. He attended a number of educational establishments where his teachers described him as ‘not all there’, ‘somewhere else’ and in ‘a little world all of his own’. The school reports from his early education are currently in a brown cardboard box in a very safe place to prevent competitor academics gaining access as they are believed to provide a clue as how he manages to slip between realities. After failing at a wide range of schools, he eventually finished his education at Devizes School, were it is claimed that the teachers occupied as many alternate realities as he did.

Early Life

Very little is known of Holder’s early life. A lot has been written in the media about the claims made by some embroidery circles that he alone was responsible for the Restoration of the English Monarchy. Holder himself claims that he had never met the women involved and that it isn’t his likeness in the engravings.

 The 18^th Century

Nothing of note happened in the 18^th Century, but it could be that Holder had a cold the day they did that in history.

The 19^th Century

Holder did military service in the 46^th Queens Hosiery. He entered in the ranks and after serving for 40 years in India and Afghanistan, emerging as the country’s most decorated major. This is mainly due to the relationships with the local embroidery circles. It is probably his exploits with the young embroiderers of Bangalore that would later be embellished by the Lord of the Evil Empire  to try and undermine his role as confidant to un-named member of the royal family.

After military service, Holder returned to London where he worked as osteopath to the stars enjoying affairs with many music hall stars of the era. His career reached it’s peak in 1894, but a scandal involving a young chorus girl, exotic fruit, two small lizards and a malfunctioning butter churn in a suite at the Ritz Hotel meant him leaving England to live the life of a hermit in the Balkans.

While practicing as an osteopath, he formed a lifelong friendship with Ethaniel Nightswerve, the brewing and embrocation magnate. This relationship lasted for many years and it is Holder who is credditted with providing Nightswerve with the confidence to set up his first brewery. Holder also invested £50 in the newly formed company and the profits from this venture is believed to have funded his early amphibian research.

The early 20^th Century

It is widely acknowledged that the authorities in Europe have hushed up that Holder very nearly prevented World War I. On the eve of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, Holder was called to the Archduke’s private apartments and called upon to give him a reading of his bumps. According to Holder, he advised the Archduke he would be killed if he ventured out the next day. Official sources deny this saying that he was advised to ‘wear an extra vest in case he caught his death of a cold’.

Dried Frog Pills

With the Serbian Secret Service hot on his tail, Holder was smuggled out of the Balkans by a young Chief Inspector McCrindle Barleymow Honeydew-Fforbes of Old Scotland Yard. MI5, worried that Holder could destabilise the war effort, sent Holder to Peru. There he noticed the local custom of licking toads seemed to leave the population in a state of calm equilibrium with a very laid back attitude to life. After pairing up with a passing double-jointed anthropologist, he decided to perform an in depth study of the various amphibians and their therapeutic properties.

Due to a particularly energetic and long duration session of bedroom gymnastics with the aforementioned anthropologist, a set of toads put in the oven to warm, were forgotten. By the time that Holder returned to them, they had been reduced to a fine powder. A passionate argument ensued during which various substances were thrown across the laboratory, one of which, when exposed to fumes from Ethaniel Nightswerve’s Thoracic liniment,  caused a reaction with the toad. Subsequent testing showed that in pill form, the resulting concoction proved to be even more beneficial than the licking of toads and did not make the subject prone to tongue warts.

Evar

Holder is the mentor and agent to the Latvian downhill skier, Evar.

Notes

1. ^ Interview with a legend, Pippa Greatchest, The Guardian UK, 2002-10-16. Retrieved 2008-02-14
   
2. ^ Embrocation – The Recession Proof Investment, Harry Porten Lemon, The Financial Times, 2009-02-11. Retrieved 2009-03-06.
   
3. ^  Embroidery in Warfare. The Times Educational Supplement. 15 October 1997. http://www.the times.co.uk/news/arts/embriodery/scandle_in_needpoint.html. 
   
4. ^ Best 360 Evar!, The Sun UK, 2006-08-23. Retrieved 2008-02-14

References

• Therapeutic Amphibian Extractions   Dr Wilfred Clapman. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 2005-01-13.
  
• Legends of the Yard, Socialist Worker, Magenta Poppet, 2000-10-12. Retrieved 2007-08-27.

External links

• The Official Simon Holder Website Website red1hols.blogspot.com/
  
• How to Embroider History Richard Cavendish looks at the role of Tapestry in Modern European History.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon Holder"

Guiding me to the Forest Path

On a Sunday lunchtime, a group of us get together in the 'Rat & Ferret' to enjoy a couple of pints of Dr Ethaniel Nightswerve's Velvet Cudgel and generally socialise. Topics of conversation are wide ranging and eclectic.

There are the common themes like our discussions on Evar's latest attempt at inclusion in the record books, postulations on the miracles of engineering that must constitute the barmaid's undergarments and the prospects of Oundelian Wanderers qualifying for European football. The latter topic we discuss with much head shaking and tutting now that the Oundelian star striker, Stan 'Twinkletoes' Ferchop has been injured in a freak pedicure accident.

As the level of the ale lowers in our glass, the conversation diversifies and starts to meander through life's little mysteries. (See Note 1).

On Sunday, the conversation had somehow found its way to the subject of teachers. As I recounted a memory of one particular teacher, I suddenly found Bertram Willder at my elbow and thrusting his card into my hand.

Trust me, you do not want to have a person like Willder at your elbow. He is one of those people who seems to be able enter a room without opening a door, so the shock caused me to spill a few drops of the Velvet Cudgel on my sweater. (see Note 2).

I looked at the card. For that particular event, Willder was operating as ‘B. Willder’, solicitor and partner in ‘Everyone’s a Winner’ law practice franchise.

Willder looked genuinely shocked as I declined the offer and started to start on his well rehearsed sales pitch. (see Note 3). However, when I made to tip some of the Vevet Cudgel on his sharp suit, he backed off. Muttering under his breath, he slithered away to pester another regular with an opportunity to invest in a steam powered toothbrush company.

You see, my setaceous yeomen, I am not a litigious soul. Besides, the subject of my anecdote, my ‘careers’ teacher, is protected by the simple fact that I cannot remember his name.

I can picture him well enough, the crop of unruly sandy hair, the patchy moustache that sat unevenly under his bulbous red nose. I can see him sat opposite me, eyes desperately trying to focus, the vein on his temple throbbing gently as he tried to control his natural aversion to teenage boys.

He wasn’t a dedicated careers teacher. His main subject was maths. It was generally accepted that the reason was that he became careers master was because he was the last to find an excuse when the headmaster asked for volunteers. His unfortunate and ironic assignment as the teacher to set young people onto the ideal career path was probably due to his need for constant nips from a bottle of Johnny Walker whenever faced by pupils.

The method for helping us making the career choices was ‘computer aided’. We were given a questionnaire with a number of questions. You answered the questions on a card which were collected and sent away to be processed by a huge computer.

It was the early days of computing.

Some weeks later the results came back and you were scheduled a meeting with the careers teacher.

I went in with an air of expectation only to be knocked sideways by stale whisky fumes. I recovered, sat down and waited for teacher to focus on me. He put the bottle, badly disguised as a brown paper bag in a drawer. At the third attempt, he grabbed a sheet of paper and thrust it my approximate direction.

“Forest Ranger.” He slurred.

“Eh?” was my response. “I have a tree pollen allergy.”

He shook his head, grabbing the desk for support as he did so. A short monologue ensued in which he evangelised on the infallibility of the modern computer before drawing the consultation to a close with a bellowed “Next!” (see Note 4)

My career as a Forest Ranger was short lived. For a start there were a lot of us Forest Rangers roaming the Wiltshire countryside trying to herd trees into a forest. For those of you who have ever tried to herd trees, you will know how difficult it is. The task was made all the more difficult by there being more Forest Rangers than actual trees, so hardly a day went by without some squabble breaking out over a copse. In the end, they decided that perhaps we would be better employed elsewhere and they made me work in an office, doing menial and repetitive tasks while being ordered about by a man in a shiny polyester suit.

I didn’t last at that either. Perhaps, I was a bit harsh on that poor careers teacher. After all, I did end up working with computers. Maybe his monologue on the infallibility of computers did have an impact on me after all. Mind you, I just wish that somebody told me that if you really wanted to make money, live in a huge mansion and always have a pretty girl on your arm, you should set up your own international porn empire.

Note 1 : It widely accepted that on Padstow's birthday, when the drink had been flowing particularly freely we had actually managed to solve the riddle of the meaning of life. Sadly, none of us thought to write it down and the answer was lost amongst the resulting hangovers.

Note 2 : Which is a real shame. I liked that sweater. Now, instead of the happy faces of those chirpy Disney characters, Chip and Dale, exalting the world to smile on the front, it is now a mass of holes. It looks like it has been the victim of a swarm of moths on acid.

Note 3 : A sales pitch that apparently swayed Stan ‘Twinkletoes’ Ferchop, who has not thought this through. While he did undoubtedly stagger away from the pedicure, the circumstances are likely to cause a media frenzy that could cause him to lose his lucrative endorsement from Borthwicks, the family horse liniment supplier to the stars. Just what he was doing in an unlicensed foot parlour in Soho on the eve of the game against Aston Villa is going to be hard to explain. However, it is the fact that the pedicure was being administered by a naked girl smeared in boiled rhubarb that will probably lose him the sympathy of the court.

Note 4 : It transpired later that using the logic of the infallibility of computers, 60% of school leavers that year were destined to be Forest Rangers. 20% were going to were going to be bankers and bring the world economy to its knees and 18% were going to be car mechanics. The other 2% were going to have a long and happy career on the stage as drag queens.