100 Not Out

  History

  4th AUGUST, 1914

  All the boys in the village were excited by the news. "It'll be an adventure," they said. "We'll all join up together."

  "Don't go," said Alice, but she was torn. She worried a little, but she was so proud of them, and she didn't need to be told that two of the most handsome ones, Danny and Carlos, had a shine for her. They were already competing for her attention, trying to show who was the bravest.

  "Don't be afraid for us," the boys said. "Anyway, we'll be back in no time."

  That wasn't how it worked out, of course.

  VECTORS

  If you can recall your school mathematics lessons, 'vectors' are distances to which direction has been applied. Their practical use really only dates from the mid-eighteenth century, but they're known as 'Euclidean' vectors because it was the ancient Greek mathematician Euclid who first spotted their importance.

  A keen runner, he ran in the 10,000 metres finals at the 272BC Olympics. Trailing in a distant ninth, Euclid suddenly realised that after a great deal of effort running 25 laps, he was simply back where he'd started.

  Euclid thus proved it was more efficient to be a couch potato than a runner.

  CHEZ CAESAR

  The other night four of us hit The Colosseum, the classiest joint in town. The waiter showed us to our table.

  "What'ya got?" I asked. "Any of that stuff you had on the menu last time?"

  "Christian?" the waiter replied. "Sure, sir, fresh in from Spain."

  "Spain?" Leo said. "Different – you certain it's good?"

  "The best, sir. 'Animal even has a name – 'Maximus'. Tonight, we're serving it garlic-infused with a side salad."

  "Yeah? OK, waiter – Maximus for four! Make it snappy."

  The Colosseum didn't let us down. Twenty minutes later, we four shared a great meal.

  Scrunch, scrunch, scrunch.

  Yum.

  TRAITORS

  During and after World War Two, Britain's Secret Intelligence Service MI6 was infiltrated by Soviet double agents. Four were eventually identified: Burgess (codename "Hicks"), Maclean ("Homer"), Philby ("Stanley") and Blunt ("Johnson"), but rumours continued regarding the final member of the infamous "Cambridge Five". The recent movie "The Imitation Game" suggested John Cairncross, without foundation.

  We can now exclusively reveal the fifth spy. Sir Nicholas de Lapland was ideal: a bearded, unremarkable older man moving quietly in society. The perfect spy is seen but ignored.

  Perhaps the colour of codename "Santa's" unusual cape should have indicated his likely political leanings, however.

  A.D. 1582

  A.D. 1582: Pope Gregory put down his pen. At last, after years of trying, he had produced his first ever flash fiction story – and finished it on a Friday, as well. It was a story about his favourite subject: time.

  Logging into LinkedIn, he copied and pasted his contribution into the Friday Flash Fiction discussion, only to be greeted with howls of complaint from others that he’d got the day wrong. It wasn’t Friday, but actually Monday. Not according to the chart on HIS wall, though.

  “Ah,” he said to himself. “Looks like I need to change the calendar, then.”

  BURMA, 1944

  Not technically fiction, I suppose. If my dad hadn’t been one of the six, you wouldn’t be reading this now.

  The doctors and nurses have all been led outside the tent by the Japanese; we, the wounded, are left to wonder inside.

  Suddenly there's a long burst of machine-gun fire, followed by a silence, then some Japanese shouting.

  Then another brief silence.

  Suddenly the machine gun is strafing our tent we dive below most of us too late but not me thank God.

  Silence.

  A Japanese soldier enters the tent, searching for the living. Bullet to the head each time. I play dead.

  Six of us escape under cover of darkness later.

  I suppose our side does bad stuff too.

  ORVILLE AND WILBUR FLIGHT

  Orville and Wilbur Flight stood at the fifth-floor window, ready to try their man-powered flight machine. Like the ill-fated Icarus Project, the pilot was required to pedal a bike which by complex gearing powered fast-flapping wings on the pilot’s back.

  Orville produced a coin. “Toss to see who goes first. Heads you win.” He tossed: heads.

  “Great!” said an excited Wilbur, and without further ado donned the contraption and launched into thin air pedalling furiously. Immediately, he plunged fifty feet to his death.

  “At last,” said Orville, pocketing the double-headed coin. “Now I’m the sole heir to the family fortune.”

  RUSSIAN LEFT BOOT DAY

  You’re probably aware that today is “Russian Left Boot Day”, a long-running celebration of a wartime episode when the Soviet central planning system went disastrously wrong.

  During WW2, boots for Soviet soldiers were in such short supply that Stalin ordered one million pairs to be made immediately. Unfortunately, he wasn’t specific enough, and instead of one million pairs, two million left boots were made.

  Everyone was too scared while he was alive, but since Stalin’s death, self-deprecating Russians have celebrated this day every year by wearing left shoes on both feet all day.

  Watch out for iPhone “selfies” being posted...