What have the Romans ever done for us?

Petersfield is set to become the centre of world attention, after the statue of King William the Third was discovered to have something up his sleeve.

 The statue before time had its way

 

For some time now the statue of William the Third, or Bill the Turd as he is known affectionately by locals, has been decaying. The situation reached tipping point on December 21 2011, when Bill’s right arm, the hand of which was holding an unidentified scroll, dropped off.

Wynne Tersolstice, working for R Maggedon Erections who were employed by Petersfield Town Council (PTC) to assess the damage to the statue, has announced that there is a prophecy inscribed in the arm and scroll.

“This is earth-shattering news”, he said. “The discovery of the millennium. You may be aware that life on earth is expected to end at midnight on December 21 2012; this is a widely accepted view, a date that all children are taught at school. Well, it would appear that date is wrong. The actual date is in fact January 21, 2013”

Tersolstice shows us some inscriptions on the inside of the arm and ultimately a series of roman numerals that are inscribed on the inside of the scroll, they read – XXI  I  MMXIII.

One more Christmas after all

“The sculptor’s name also points to the fact that the original Mayan projection was wrong, perhaps working under a nom de plume, as the piece is signed Huan Moore-Month.

“The original calculations were made using the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar, notably used by the pre-Columbian Mayan civilization and is based upon a cycle of thirteen b’ak’tuns (periods of 144,000 days each) since the mythical creation date of the calendar's current era.

“It would appear that since we went decimal back in the 1970s, that’s thrown things a bit and we stand to gain an extra month.”

Speaking on behalf of PTC, Mark Kett-Pitches commented: “You wait ‘til I speak to Al Paca, that Peruvian stallholder who used to sell jumpers, shawls, hats and scarves.

“He refused to renew his licence as we wouldn’t reduce his fee to reflect the fact that 2012 will be a short year. Who’s laughing now Paca?”

Blow me

Proper fairy lights, arranged by real fairies.

A treemendous reversal of fortunes has seen Petersfield win a second award for its Christmas tree lights, this time because they look so beautiful. 

Our story of 20 December 2011, told you how the straight lines of lights that were simply hanging vertically from the town tree had met with bad reviews from all and sundry, and had in fact won us a wooden spoon type award from the appropriately named Government Body - CRAP (Christmas Redecoration And Parties). That same organisation has now awarded us a gold star! 

Newswire questioned Petersfield Town Council (PTC) in an effort to establish who should be congratulated for the alterations, but nobody seems to know who was responsible.

Speaking on behalf of PTC Wynne Dee-Knight told us: "Nobody was given instructions to make the changes, but the Council will happily take the credit for the improvements; doesn't it look lovely".

Harry Caneforce, a member of the PTC team who is responsible for removing the decorations told us: "We don't know who did it, the way the lights were draped it would have taken me only a few minutes to remove them, now it's going to take me quite a while to untangle the ruddy things from the tree. Irresponsible, that's what it is".

Apart from Mr Caneforce, everyone we spoke to regards the display is far more Christmassy and imaginative, far better than the dreadful straight lines that hung there before.

Speaking on behalf of CRAP, Gus T Weather told us: "This really is an incredible story, what a stunning transformation. Adding to the mystery of course, the work seems to have been carried out overnight by fairies. Real fairy lights, how wonderful".