'How much is that topper in the window?'
It's four shillings and six, sir. Oh dear. I suggest you had better seek an outfitters more suitable to your means.
A hat is, quite simply, a head covering device. Though it is not a crown, a cap or a helmet. Or a wig, or a veil. But most other head covering devices are hats.
Hats come in many shapes, sizes and dimensions (if you count the 12-dimensional hats postulated by today's physicists). They range from the more familiar styles such as the top hat, the fedora, and the bowler, to the more interesting tricorn and the Carmen Miranda, all the way through to the outlandish New Guinean Poop Deck and the Bavarian Musical Wurst-Horn.
Although banned for a short time during the Victorian era - condemned as base and explicitly sensual - hats have always been a popular way of expressing social status, political affiliation and mood. In republican Rome the democratic popularis politicians would often wear a trilby to indicate their political leanings. The Vikings wore helmets that bore horns, which they would sound in battle by pressing the knob on the top of the helmet (and some see in this the forerunner of the parping cacophony of the modern traffic jam). Shakespeare famously wore a fez, as he thought it made him look Bohemian.
In fact, other than the Victorian hiatus, the only other period of hat shortage was during World War Two, when the government ordered hat production to cease so that the skills of milliners could be concentrated on designing bombs that would fall at a jaunty angle.
The hat remains popular to this day, although some experts fear that the growth of online hats may finally sound the death knell for this much loved headgear.
Hats
The Sea
"Soaked to the skin and exhausted, he hauled himself up and looked out of the life raft at the dark mountainous swell, spray lashing his face, storm wind howling angrily all around, and remembered that he had forgotten to call his mother again."
The sea, vast, majestic and untamed, has had an unshakeable grip on the human imagination since it was invented in the 19th Century so that trade ships could be sailed between Europe and the Americas, rather than pushing them on log rollers. Since that time it has also been a much simpler task working out which countries are islands.
There are by consensus seven seas, covering four thirds of the Earth's surface, and they contain an enormously rich diversity of plant and animal species, including fish, numerous invertebrates and Wales. Many marine organisms parallel those we find on God's dry land, such as seahorses, sea cows, sea cucumbers, and sealions, and many of these are raised in seafarms by seafarmers who drive around on seatractors wearing sea flat caps and complain about the city types from Atlantis. Except for the sealions, which are of course kept in a zoo.
The sea is salty because it is the Earth's sweat. As climate change warms the globe, the Earth will sweat more, meaning that the seas increase in volume, and possibly odour, threatening many low-lying areas such as the lowlands of Holland, Lower Saxony and Lowestoft with a briny doom (or 'broom').
The sea is now 37 and lives in Sussex with its partner, Stephen, and Muffles the cat.
Animals
'Animal' describes any living organism that is neither a plant nor a mineral; in fact, minerals are dead, so effectively an animal is anything that isn't a plant. Animals are also known as creatures, beasties and 'meat trolleys'.
There are characteristics common to all animals: they breathe, they eat, they reproduce, they wear sunglasses, and they can be trained to do circus tricks.
In addition, all animals have superpowers.
Surprisingly, animals have differing opinions about foreign policy.
Some popular animals you may have heard of:
Dogs
Dogs are one of the earliest known domesticated animals, and today many are trained to hoover, make dinner and even work the dishwasher. Many dogs are talented percussionists, and canine drummers have a particularly strong presence in 20th Century classical music and jazz.
Dogs are descended from wolves, and indeed many still turn into humans every full moon.
Sheep
Sheep, like dogs, have been part of the menagerie (a type of dessert) of domesticated animals for millenia.
Sheep have 4 legs, sweet tasting wool and empty, soulless eyes. They live in burrows underground and only emerge to graze, breed or hunt.
Sheep can read minds.
Cats
All cats are gay. They are also skilled carpenters, shaping wood using saws, chisels, and finishing by using their tongues as sandpaper.
Cats can see ghosts, but don't find them very interesting.
Mammoths
Mammoths are made entirely of hair and tusks. They are extremely hardy creatures, built to cope with cold climates and harsh conditions, but as their habitat began to recede at the end of the last Ice Age the survival of the species was in doubt.
Consequently, a herd of several thousand mammoths was sent to colonise Mars, and a healthy population lives on the cold red planet to this day.
Mammoths can start fires by emitting laser from their eyes.
Cheese
Cheese has been a staple part of the diet in many parts of the world since as far back as anyone can remember, including the oldest person there is (whose memory is going a bit, admittedly. Although he does remember the war. But he doesn't like to talk about it).
Cheeses are made by adding bacteria to the milk of animals; normally cow's milk, but sheep, goat, mammoth, vampire and lizard milk can also be used. The milk is placed in a large wooden vat and then music is played to excite the bacteria in the milk into a crazy protein frenzy.
Commonly, fast tunes such as a sailor's hornpipe, a gypsy dance, or gabba are played, to produce a robust, nutty taste, but a classical piece such as Brahms' Rhapsody for Alto and Male Chorus (Op. 53) can result in a more mellow cheese, especially when used on a lazy milk such as that of the tortoise or the cat.
There are as many cheeses as there are grains of sand in a sandwich eaten on a sandy beach. Some of the most exquisite varieties include Fromage de Dieu, Hebridean Fuck, Bavarian Hundkäse and Princess Diana's Tit Cheese.
Elvis 'the shellfish' Presley
Elvis Presley (c.2500BC - AD1977) was born to a tribe of Neolithic herdsmen in the Preseli mountains of South Wales in the mid 3rd Millienium BC. A natural singer from an early age, he found it difficult to fit in with his semi-nomadic stone-monument-building peers, and as soon as he was able he left for Mississippi, Lancs.
He started playing in a band and quickly became famous for mixing the hitherto 'black' sound of bashment and dancehall with the 'white' sound of 17th Century Baroque. Much of his early work took place at the Sun Studios, though in his later career he excused the topless Page 3 modelling he did there as 'the mere exuberance of youth, man...thangyuverrmush'.
Within a few years his fame had spread world-wide, and he had regular appearances on TV, radio and toast. His stage shows became increasingly extravagant and elaborate, to the point where he opened one 1968 show by invading Luxembourg at the head of an army of gorillas in pink neon-lit top hats, accompanied by a full cavalry of robotic giraffes carrying giant guitars.
Soon, however, people grew tired of his by now overblown style, and he started to lose his appeal for many fans, young and old. A degree of the criticism levelled at him in his later career seems to have been due to misunderstandings of his lyrics, however, as there were occasions when he would be chased from a betting shop or pub while people tried to put bread on his blue suede shoes, or urged him to 'return to Sandwich'.
As his popularity waned, his misuse of alcohol, amphetamines and angel delight increased. He quickly retreated into fish-and-chip fuelled obscurity in Bournemouth.
Elvis died in 1977 as the result of a bizarre accident with a bassoon and a tortoise. He is survived by two children, Mordred and Balthazar.
Prime Ministers
The position of prime minister is the most important in the British political machine (a concept that became famous after the Queen's famous description of Harold Wilson as much like "the dial on a washing machine - without him the nation can't wash its smalls").
The prime minister is so called because he or she is a minister not divisible by any other political figure, except 1 or him/herself. The office itself was established in the Second World War by Winston Churchill, who was also the first nodding affirmative action dog to run a state.
Famous prime ministers have included Mark Thatcher, Hampstead Heath and Morticia Addams.
Ghosts
(Also known as wraiths, phantasms, spooks and spirits)
A ghost is what is left of a person after the soul has gone to the underworld, the body has turned to dust, and all the clothes have been given to a charity shop.
Ghosts have been around for several millennia. Several classical Greek plays contain references to ghosts, most famously in the comedy Heebie-Jeebies in Thebes by Aristophanes and the tragic Don't tell the Archon his Wife is See-through by Euripides.
In the medieval period it was thought that ghosts were caused by bad smells. They were generally regarded as pests, and most households would have their own scented priest to keep the ghosts away. Outside of the peak ghosting period, the priests were stored in priest-holes, which can still be seen in some ex-local authority flats today.
These days the public attitude towards ghosts is quite different, and ghosts perform many useful tasks such as slamming doors mysteriously, breaking unwanted crockery and making children talk with unearthly grown-up voices, which provides hours of family entertainment around Christmas time.