Ninjas

Ninjas are a species of ghost bred for the purpose of assassination and other nefarious deeds. It is said that a ninja is able to move like the cat, glide like the owl, bark like the dog and sing like the moth. No-one ever hears a ninja's approach, because he stealthily places earmuffs on the watchmen and guards as he passes by.

A ninja carries deadly weapons of stealth, such as the death star - a huge planet which can shoot other planets with a laser - or the nun-chuck, which can chuck nuns. He dresses in black, because it is flattering to the figure, and covers his face with a mask to prevent freckling.

When a ninja strikes, it is always to kill. Occasionally the victim may escape with psychological damage and bodily wounding. These are referred to as 'ninjuries'.

Wizards

Wizards are men who perform magic. They are learned in arcane and esoteric lore, and are able to perform spells in peculiar languages that you or I could not hope to understand, such as Glaswegian.

A wizard normally has a staff, because even a powerful magician requires a small team to run his back office functions. He dresses in a sort of brightly coloured poncho called a 'robe', which is decorated in astrological signs and mystical symbols such as the pentagram and the ancient sygil that means 'no smoking'. In the capacious folds of this robe are secreted wizardly items (known as 'wizquipment') such as magical tomes, spare wands, beard wax, snacks and a library card.

Wizards also wear pointy hats which are decorated with stars and moons. When set to 'soft glow' mode, these act as comforting nightlights for young wizards who are afraid to sleep in the dark.

Letters

Letters are the constituent parts of the written word, where each letter represents a different sound, such as '  ' or '  '.   The collective noun for a flock of letters is an alphabet.  There are 26 letters in common usage in written English, but in fact the full version of the English alphabet contains almost 300 letters; most of these are rarely used, being both silent and invisible.

The following, in order of appearance in Jane Austen's classic novel Men and Menstruation, are the most commonly used household letters, such as one might find in any regular coffee table book or hairdryer instruction manual:

- Bb or B flat is the silent B, which occurs in words such as 'bomb' (pronounced 'om').
- Q is an unnecessary letter, which could easily be replaced by K, but it is often said that the English like to form a Q out of politeness. 
- T is the opposite of S.   It is the most widely-used drink in the English alphabet.
- W is named ‘Double U', or ‘U2' for short, but it is in fact two Vs conjoined and is therefore worth ten.

Since a Royal Mail rule change in 2007, the price of sending a letter in the UK has varied according to the letter's size.   This means that the cost of sending a large X to an aunt in Inverness would be upwards of 92 pence.*   Pre-2007 letters are now obsolete, but one could use any found lying about the house to make alphabet soup, which should be served cold, like revenge or gazpacho.

*ie, 93 pence.

The Prodigy

The Prodigy are a man who produced a number of dance music hits in the 1990s and two thousands. Among their hits is the controversial single Smack My Biscuits.

The term 'child prodigy' is unrelated, and means an angry child who dances in tunnels and has funny hair.

Jobs

These days, nearly everyone has a job, although jobs are less popular in times of recession. A job is a method of filling the dull time between having breakfast and having dinner, unless you work a night shift in which case it fills the time between pudding and having a morning wee.

Here are some jobs that people do:

Dentists
Dentists smell of mints and have a unique number for every single tooth in the world. If they ask you to say ‘R’, be careful not to growl as it gets their hackles up.

Astronauts
Astronauts wear suits made of a special material that repels space invaders. In space, no one can eat ice cream.

Butchers
Butchers do the unpleasant job of separating meat from the animal that has kindly looked after it for the last year or two. Butchers have great vocabularies, and have invented nice words especially for bits of animals that you wouldn’t like to eat, like chitterlings, giblets and sweetbreads, because beasticles, gormenghastlies and danglepieces don’t sound very appetising.

Sailors
Sailors are really friendly, so if you see one you should say, ‘Hello sailor.’ If a sailor offers to show you his hornpipe, you should politely decline, since their mazurka is normally much better.

Beans

In the beginning, there were beans. And God said, ‘Let there be toast.’ And there was toast. Then he noticed that the beans were Worcester Sauce flavoured, and he cast them aside.

God, of course, has quite traditional tastes. Humans, on the other hand, crave culinary adventure, and in the last five thousand years we have developed more than 57 (ie, 58) varieties of bean. Most varieties are bean-shaped, though the Tyrolean Flugelbean and the South African Cauliflower Bean are more unusual, while the North American Frisbean can be a great source of entertainment at a picnic. However, only three or four beans are available in most shops, including the mung bean, the Sean bean, the well bean, and the jelly bean. If you are lucky enough to live near a ‘Beanocopia’ you will have a wide range to pick from.

Beans are the eggs of a small mammal called the haricot, and can be free range or battery-grown. These days most people prefer free range, although the nets and fine-mesh chicken wire required to prevent their escape makes them more expensive to raise than some other legumes.

Luke Skywalker

Explorer, naturalist and TV presenter

Most famous for his Ewokipaedia, Luke Skywalker wowed TV audiences for three decades with his natural history documentaries on the wildlife of Tatooine, Dagobah, and Margate.
In 1985, Skywalker experienced a surge in popularity when he took part in a charity sumo-wrestle with David Attenborough, a fellow naturist and star of The Great Escape.

Skywalker was hanged for DVD piracy in 1996.