BEAR FACTS

Dear Lyer,
Now that the royal sport of fox-hunting has been banned (bah!), might I suggest the re-introduction of bear-baiting? In the past 2 years, 27 people in my village have been eaten. The culprits? A savage gang of grizzly bears who rampage through our sleepy hamlet whenever they fancy biting a face off. Quite frankly, many people are beginning to get fed up. Tighter security on bear farms has been suggested, but in my opinion this would be yet another case of bolting the horses long after the door has been allowed to escape. Most of my long suffering neighbours have been forced to surround their homes with vicious bear traps, which to date have caused the agonising deaths of 15 postmen going about the queen's business. Properly licensed bear-baiting pits would serve a dual purpose viz: to keep the rampaging bear population down, and to provide simple, honest entertainment for the bloodthirsty masses.

Bob Hayseed (faarmer)
Hassock-in-the-Wurne

THE LYER SAYS: Should chasing cuddly little foxes on horses, killing them and smearing their blood on children's faces be unbanned? Readers are invited to send in their angry marauding bear stories, either made up or true

TRACY BITES BACK

Dear Lyer,
I would like to remind the Great British So-Called "Public" that Art is like an onion, and should be peeled before being eaten. I smoked an onion once, when I was in Morrocco giving the natives a workshop on how to make rugs, but quite frankly, it just made me cry.
Quite a lot of things make me cry these days. Bus tickets, oven gloves, theoretical sub-particles, Carry On films, puppies, the destruction of the rainforests, my tab at the pub. But hey I'm an artist! Sure, once upon a time, back in the old Wild Tracy days, crying and all that kind of stuff would have got me like, really depressed! Hah! Not a bit of it! Nowadays I just get out my handkerchief, blow my nose on it, nail it to a bit of wood and flog it to some rich charmless wanker trying to impress his bird.

Tracy Eminem (Ms)
The White Pseud Gallery

See Arts News : Tracy - Why does everyone think I'm an twat?

PRUNE DREAMS

Dear Lyer,
Why do you insist upon printing rambling, boring letters not unlike this one, which only serve to reinforce the generally held opinion that your readers are pruriently interested in the absurd views of a cretinous minority of people who, like myself, have been abducted by tiny extraterrestrial ants which gained entrance to my house by diguising themselves as currents in some Dundee Cake, a type of cake of which I am particularly fond, and after I had innocently eaten the cake, which was delicious, burst forth from my abdomen one afternoon when I had forgotten to take my medication, and beamed me aboard their huge atomic powered ant spacecraft which they had parked in my front garden, completely flattening my hydrangea and what was worse, demolishing the fence which separates me from my neighbour Frank Sinatra who is trying to electrocute me by magnetising my cutlery using a sophisticated short wave cutlery magnetiser which he got from his friends in the CIA who want to have me rubbed out because of what I know about the Kennedy assassination?

R.Sheets
Scalliwag Ward
Pfaff Secure Institutions Inc
The Netherlands

THE LYER SAYS: Are any other readers being inconvenienced by short wave cutlery magnetiser-wielding dead celebrity neighbours? Your letters, and any other new Kennedy assassination evidence please!

A WORD IN YOUR OAR
via email

Dear Lyer,
I recently completed The Lyer's so-called "very very very difficult crossword", which took me all of 4min 27secs, including 31.4secs answering the door! However, as a former district crossword champion (Padstow 1966) I feel compelled to point out to you that the so-called solution is in fact just a collection of meaningless non-existent words. Take 5 down, Pbhouress. What is that supposed to mean? 4 across, Gbini. No such word! 12 down, Lampotiti, Lampotiti?!!! Well I'm up to your little game let me tell you. You can't pull the wragnglol over my eyes!

Stanley P. Groyne,
Assistant treasurer
The East Sussex Society of Insoluble Equations
Neuroses
Kent

THE LYER SAYS: Stanley was not the only reader to fall for our special April Fool crossword! The clues set by our compiler Ron Snyde, deliberately led the puzzler to believe that meaningless, non-existent words were the solution!

(It even had me fooled for a smakaedrion- ed).

CRICKET BALLS

Dear Lyer,
The whining hoards of unwashed liberal namby-pambies are wrong as usual. Public beheadings and the amputating of limbs have no bearing on whether or not an England XI should tour Saudi Arabia. The predominently Sunni arabs are practically strangers to the game of cricket, and play with a tennis ball. Saudi wickets tend to be very sandy with small dunes dotted around the boundary, and camels, which interfere with play. Under these circumstances, our high order batsmen are odds on to rack up a huge score, thus restoring the England team to it's rightful position as fourth best in the world, Are we to allow a few human rights abuses to prevent our great sporting ambassadors from bringing British decency and democracy to a country which, let's face it, still supports the abolition of slavery?

R.Kilroy-Silk (no relation)
Brussels

MATHS DESTRUCTION

Dear Lyer,
I wonder if you could settle an argument. My friend says that the square on the side of the hypotinuse of an equilateral triangle is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides. I say that the angle of incidence is equal to the angle of reflection. Who is right?

THE LYER SAYS: You are both wrong. The Otto Cycle is a two-stroke internal combustion engine with a low cubic capacity, unsuitable for heavy pulling work. It was originally designed for King Otto of Sweden, whose religion forbade him to wipe his own arse.

Dr. Ralph M. Spoonbender, science correspondent

 

CROICPOT

Dear Lyer,
I saw in the paper the other day where Gerry Adams the Irish Republican spokesmansperson was quoted as saying that he "had great difficulty passing a bookshop". I don't doubt it - most nutritionists, be they of Loyalist or Republican persuation, would seriously question the wisdom of eating one in the first place. Doctors have warned for many years that the binding on hardback novels can remain in the lower abdominal tract for several months. Art catalogues and old car manuals in particular are notoriously difficult to digest, and can often cause serious stomach disorders if not chewed properly. This may result in memorabilia of the bowel, chronic paraphernalia and sudden death. As far as eating the bookshop itself is concerned - that would depend very much upon the building materials used in it's construction, but in the long run it is advisable to stick to the government recommended diet of raw pricilla, goat cheese, and alfalfa.

Prof. E. Tojam
Dept of Nutrician
Hartlepool Anal Retention Centre
Dublin University

THE LYER SAYS: Do any of our readers know why the above letter was published?

 

THE FUTURE'S ORANGE

Dear Lyer,
Has anyone seen that new TV series "Guantanamo Baywatch"? What a load of rubbish! Huge-breasted women romping around a beach in orange boiler suits? Call that entertainment? I say bring back Peter Brough the radio ventriloquist, and that bloke who can eat light bulbs.
And hanging.
When we were lads you could go out with 5p in your pocket, drink as much as you like, buy twenty fags and still have enough money left over for a generous portion of fish and chips and a prostitute

A.Pierrepoint
"The Gallows"
Pessery-in-the-Hammock
Waltdisneyshire

THE LYER SAYS: If any of our readers remember the good old days, or have some hilarious anecdotes about times gone by, why not get together and jump off a cliff? Or set yourselves on fire?