How I never became a Hero

Today I plan to tell you a true story of a heroic nature, OK I think it was heroic because I did the heroic deed. It is an event that happened many many years ago as in a seriously long time ago when I was about twenty or there about.  At the time I was an Electro-Mechanical engineering apprentice, well either that or I had just finished my apprenticeship and I worked in a lab in a huge engineering business in one of those post war new towns. The fact it was a post war new town is important because this particular one had a network of cycle paths and footpaths that weaved about under the roads with nice wide sloping grass banks to keep the cars and pedestrians apart. All part of the optimistic design ideas for post war towns at the time.

Now living in this environment it was not uncommon when the weather was nice for me to walk home from work even though it was about a mile and a half. It was still quicker than driving due to volume of traffic. Well one particular summers evening as I was wandering under one of the pedestrian/ cycle underpasses which went under a dual carriageway a rather formally dressed chap in front of me who was just emerging out of the subway set off running like a bat out of hell. Not something you see every day and that’s for sure, well as I was a few feet or so behind him as I emerged to my left coming down the hill and bouncing out of control on the grass banks was a large truck with no driver. Luckily as I watched it heading towards me it ran up one of the grass banks stopped and then rolled backwards before starting to continue its trip down the hill. This gave me the opportunity to run up and leap into the cab before it gained too much speed and I was able to hit the foot brake to stop it just before it attempted to go under one of the pedestrian bridges. That was just as well as the truck cab was about three feet higher than the bridge and I might have got a bit squashed. Well as I sat there pondering where the handbrake was the driver turned up, apparently he had got out of his cab to ask directions and his truck set off without him. He was very panicked so I had to sit with him to get him back on the road and to the factory he was delivering too.

Once I got him there I then wandered back home thinking OOOOooo very heroic maybe I will be in the local paper looking heroic. . . Well about half an hour later the police turned up at the scene of the accident as it was visible from where I lived, so I went and said I had stopped the runaway truck and had taken it and the driver to a local factory, they then sped off without even asking my name, and that was that.

I never got to be a hero. . . and although it sounds a bit scary to tell the truth I did much scarier stuff when I worked offshore in the very early 1980’s when it was still a bit gung-ho.

But if that had happened today it would be all over YouTube and social-media and I would be able to look heroic and say . . . No it just all in a day’s work.  Being somewhat old and knackered now I suspect I would never catch a runaway truck these days and folk would point and laugh, But I did have the satisfaction at the time to note that everyone else ran screaming and panicking and I as a stubborn rebellious bloke (always was and always will be) did not.

Now this story is entirely true in every detail it all happened as I have detailed and I never became a hero, which makes you wonder just how many folk do heroic stuff and never get any recognition for it, I bet it happens most days.

Joe the Superhero, fighting the system and heroic deeds

Joe had always wanted to be a superhero and spent many hours reading of the many exploits that superheroes should endeavour to achieve. Of course when you are young there appear to be few obstacles to such a career move, but most folk realise as they grow older that there are few opportunities to becoming a super hero. But Joe was a dreamer and decided somehow in some way it must be possible. Despite having been laughed at by the schools career officer and then told in the unemployment office (or what ever fancy name it now has to make folk feel better) that at best Superhero’s did it all on their own time and were in fact accountants and the like.  This was not the news that Joe wished to hear and in Joe's mind any true superhero would not be stopped by the bureaucratic state machine; this was the world of the individual, the brave, the heroic. 

So it was that Joe bought the very best superhero outfit available for £9.99p online at Amazon and set off to do many many heroic deeds, having first made sure to be bitten by a spider near the nuclear power station visitors centre and an assortment of other stuff such as chewing the cat and drinking a glass of water while standing on your head. . . . (you know the usual stuff that happens to make you a superhero).

Joe's fist mission was to stop a runaway train at Kings Cross Station , but Joe got shouted at by a porter on the platform and then told off for not having a ticket resulting in a £10.07 fine. And they (The Train folk) were not keen on folk grabbing their trains to stop them, as they said most of them are running late as it is without superheroes stopping them.

Joe's next and for more daring effort was to skydive onto the wing of a passenger plane and save everyone.  The skydive itself was very successful and Joe was able to clamber along the wing and smile at the passengers, who promptly screamed, well that was not meant to happen. Then the crew refused to open the hatch to let Joe in. Things then got worse when the plane landed because Joe did not have a passport. And despite the rather valid argument that a superhero does not need a passport and that they had arrived on the wing of the plane within British airspace, Joe was fined £250.74p. Which Joe thought was rather unfair.

Slowly walking home Joe suddenly heard screaming, turning in time to see a pram shoot past heading down the steep hill. Leaping onto the No 47 bus as it passed by, Joe was then able to catch the Pram and stop it saving the small child inside. Joe was pleased and so was the mother who said that Joe was a Hero, but the bus driver said that folk were not allowed to travel on the bus for free and certainly not on the outside of the bus so Joe was fined £25.31p

Finally arriving home Joe was not entirely happy because the one aspect of being a superhero that none of the literature had mentioned, and Joe had a lot of literature on superheroes was all the fines. And so Joe decided to abandon the world of the superhero and become a Lion tamer. . . . . . . . . . . Did you know that the local pet shop refused to order a pair of lions for Joe . . . .  well that is ridiculous.

Oooooooooo and apparently according to the Metropolitan Police, Voldemort is not the evil leader of a secret organisation bent on world domination.  He is a fictional character who failed his police sergeant’s exam and took it rather badly, blaming it all on wizards.          

Zero Zephaniah Zephyr. . . . The A to Z of Slightly Strange Unknown Victorian Inventors and Explorers

Zero Zephaniah Zephyr

It was quite plain even in the life time of Zero Zephaniah Zephyr that he was stark staring mad despite his great skills in engineering and biology.  After years of studying the human form he became convinced he could make a superhuman or as he liked to call it a superhero.  He was so convinced that he could make a man that could live for ever with extraordinary powers that he set about using his own body for the experiment, slowly replacing parts with new more powerful electro-mechanical parts. There was no denying his skill as a surgeon, it is far from easy to replace your own arms and legs and ensure that the new super limbs function correctly. However once he decided to replace all his organs and transfer his brain to a new super skull to make him indestructible he needed help.

This was his eventual downfall because the only people who had conducted this sort of surgery were Professor Venomous Voldemort and his new colleague Professor Frankenstein. They were keen to help, but neither of them were tidy professors and the brain of Zero Zephaniah Zephyr got misplaced among Professor Venomous Voldemort’s own experiments with the brains of cats. So it was a shock when the world learnt that Professor Venomous Voldemort’s intelligent machine, the Voldemort Valuator Device contained the brain of Zero Zephaniah Zephyr. Worse still the new Electro-Mechanical Super Hero Zero Zephaniah Zephyr with an expected life of at least 1000 years had the brain of Mr Quinton Quantum-Quizzical’s cat called Quantum.

Zero Zephaniah Zephyr or as he liked to be know Fluffy was last seen by an angry mob holding fiery torches. He was said to be chasing a very large rat through the woods surrounding a large central European castle, where the angry mob were keen to have words with the two professors.

 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Back at the Preposterous Club of Great Britain A voice suddenly rings out . . . And that gentlemen concludes my new book The A to Z of Slightly Strange Unknown Victorian Inventors and Explorers. . . .  A loud bang as the hard cover of the illuminated volume snaps closed awakening up several of the elderly inventors with a sudden start?  One of which Dr David Danister brushing greenish sulphur from his ripped shirt replying . . . Excuse me but I think you will find that myself and Harrison Horsechestnut Hutt were not lost forever underground and we emerged fit and well only a few months later. . . .

Well it is OK for you too added Edmond Eccles but according to this book I die when in fact I was released early for good behaviour and besides Esmeralda was only stunned and then ran off with a man dressed as a penguin.

Then before anyone else can say a thing, a terrible sound could be heard at the main door of the Preposterous Club . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MMMMMmmmmmmmmeeeooooooooooooooowwwwwwww .  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . .  O my god shouts a very panicky Professor Venomous Voldemort, its that monster the cat, known to us all as Fluffy sorry I mean Zero Zephaniah Zephyr. . . . Its come to Kill us all for what happened.

End of Part One (Part two to follow in a few days time)

Name that Super Hero . . . . A lifetime opportunity

Have you ever thought cyberspace is boring, why don’t I ever get asked to name a Superhero that would be really COOL. Well yes this is your opportunity, a once in a lifetime chance to name that Super Hero.   Yes it is possible that your choice will not be chosen but who can tell, if you are the person to come up with a name for a Superhero that has not already been done to death by the various forms of media. From comics to books to films to anything else media sort of based the likes of which I can’t think of right this second because I just type and think stuff up as I'm typing.

Go on have a go Name that Super Hero, the masked man with a glove on his left hand and possible mechanical bits inside like that six dollar cat (hang on that’s not right?).

Suggest a superpower something new something astonishing and something that will entice the very nice Steven Spielberg to think . . . . . . . . . O God what on earth is that Rob Z Tobor up to now, will he not just give up and leave me alone . . . . . . . . . O NO I won't, I am persistent Mr S and once I have covered every possible plot option in the world I will sue when you make the next movie . . . HAH AH HA HAhah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha hah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ha ha hah hah hah ha ah ha hah ah hhahah hah ah ah ah hahahha ha ha ha ha ha hah ah ahaha haha hahahahahaha hahh ah  hah ah ah ha ah a ha

You have not thought of that have you Mr S . . .  

Anyway this is it this is your chance (thats everyone not just Steven Spielberg) to . . . 

 Name that Super Hero 

Entomologies very own fighter of Evil.

Is it a bird, is it a Plane No . . . . It’s Maybug Man.

Faster than a speeding butterfly

More powerful than a large Stick Insect

Ooooo look out for the lamp post Maybug Ma. . . . . . DAMN too late.

And that ceiling is quite low, you are going to fly straight into . . . . . .DAMN too Late

And watch out for that Electronic Fly zap, its switched ON . . . . . . . AH DAMN . . . .YUCK

The END. 

The A to Z of made up, unlikely and ridiculous super heroes

N is for Non-existent Man

Have you ever had a quiet night watching TV and thought to yourself . . . .  I really do hope no one turns up unexpected . . . . . .  Well this is a job for Non-existent Man, he never turns up when he is not wanted.

Do you lie in the sun in the summer worrying that something noisy and loud is  going to ruin it all flying overhead. . . .  Are you thinking  . . . Is it Bird is it a Plane . . . . Well NO its Non-existent Man, he makes no noise what so ever.

Do you rely on an Express train to get to work on time and have concerns it may be stopped by some idiot in a cape and tights. Well you can rely on Non-existent Man he never stops trains or chases bullets.

Are you a struggling burglar attacking little old ladies and stealing their cute kittens and have worries that some bloke in a mask is going to ruin your fur coat business just as it is getting started. Well NO you can depend on Non-existent Man to leave you in peace.

Pestered by Super Heroes, then call for Non-existent Man he never comes to your rescue….