On A Different Note – New Guest Post By Merlin Fraser

“On a different note” is not the title of this guest post, it’s my title. Merlin Fraser is an excellent storyteller and author. He is also a wonderful advisor, knows how to challenge me, push me a little bit, and light up my mood.

Merlin has a unique and sometimes a bit rough sense of humor, but he never failed to make me laugh.

When Merlin sent me this story, his exact words were: “I make no apologies but do warn you not to be drinking anything while you read !”

I was grateful for the warning, and herewith I’m forwarding it to you.

Have a good laugh with a funny story!

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Who Farted? I Really Want to Know

 

Whichever way you look at it, this is a great question. No ! Seriously I mean it.

I know, even as I sit here trying desperately to breathe through my ears having just let one go, that there are many readers out there sniggering already at the subject matter but it is a subject that commands a great deal of thoughtful research.

There’s is no great secret or mystery as to what a Fart is, or where it comes from. We all do it, albeit some more loudly and more frequently than others and if you are of the male persuasion it is likely you take a high degree of pride in being able to clear a room before anyone can point a finger in your direction.

There are also times when it is sensible to hold back, for instance you enter the chamber and prepare to squat do not, under any circumstances, fart on your way down because you are going to descend through it and have to sit there, eyes watering, until the rest of the business is concluded. This is a lesson that should be taught at the ‘Potty’ stage of life but, as far as I am aware, seldom is !

Additionally, Farting half way down the inside of a 40 foot steel container you are unloading should be avoided as well, again this is a common sense suggestion based upon Newton’s laws of Motion, IE you will be constantly moving backwards and forwards through it.
(I should charge for lessons like this …!)

Anyway, I am again indebted to Stan, a friend of mine who asked this question because it is one area where I feel I can speak with a great deal of authority having been exposed, if that’s the right word, to some of the worlds more renowned Farter’s and until now have had no suitable outlet for the knowledge.

My first hero was Sam, a couple of years my senior in school and a Farter of, at least, Olympic Silver medal standard. Whatever the occasion he could, produce one almost on cue. So why only the Silver medal I hear you ask, well Sam was a noisy farter and was therefore limited to the classroom or other confined spaces. Or put another way he lacked the true skill of a champion by being able to produce an SBD (Silent But Deadly) in places like parents night or end of term prize giving. The Gold medal was never awarded, we had a candidate but he, like his smelly silent butt remained anonymous. (My money was on the little blonde haired kid in first year who had the face of angel but I suspect the arse of the devil).

However, Sam does rate a special mention for being the first pupil in the school’s history to attempt to ignite a human fart with the aid of a Bunsen burner.

The effect, as I recall, was a rather pleasing yellow bluish flame of approximately 6 to 9 inches long, which may have gone unnoticed by the teacher if Sam had allowed for what I can only be describes as the ‘Blow Back’ effect in his calculations.

To be honest I failed science as a subject so you will have to bear with me if I make a complete Dogs Breakfast of describing the theory of blow back.

We were only school boys, doing what school boys do, well at our school we did, therefore I can only assume there was a lot more science involved in what happened than we previously knew.

OK, first of all there is the speed of sound (The Fart) that’s 1,126 feet per second or 768 miles per hour.

Then we have the speed of light (The Bunsen Burner flame) which is 186,282 miles per second.

Plus, we needed to consider (and didn’t) the Calorific value of Methane Gas under an unknown pressure. With hindsight, perhaps we should have given a little more mathematical thought to the reaction elapse time of the following equation:

From fart generation to ignition where the source of ignition is a constant but the actual timing of the fart was a variable as was the duration of said fart. A-n-d… Now here I’m just guessing but I think it was the elusive duration factor that caused the side effect.

You have to remember I’m going back over sixty years here but if memory serves it was one of Sam’s special Knicker Rippers, or it would have been if he hadn’t been mooning at an open flame at that precise moment in time.

The resultant nasty side effect was that by producing a Fart that close to a source of ignition turns it into a naked flame, which one assumes as a source of light actual travels at the speed of light, previously indicated of 186 thousand miles per second, which by Newton’s Laws of acceleration is knocking on a bit!

In addition, I think another thing we failed to consider is that at the time one expels a Fart oxygen is displaced thus creating a mini vacuum, which may only be present for a millisecond, but at the speed of light, that is plenty long enough for the Blow Back effect to scorch your Arse. Or in this case Sam’s arse !

REPORT CONCLUSION:

To this day, I still think if Sam hadn’t screamed we might have got away with it.

However, that and the complete failure to get his pants back up in the 2.3 seconds it took the science teacher to cross the full length of the science room. Of course, by this time there was additional evidence that not all had gone entirely to plan, the room smelled of Barbecue, and there was still a faint whiff of smoke from his singed pubic hair.

Needless to say the Head Master was summoned, Sam, now in tears and shock was led away to the Matron’s office, with his pants still round his knees leaving me to face the full force of the ‘Screaming Scull’ all by myself. (This was the nickname of the School Head Master because of his facial resemblance to the one you see on Pirate flags).

You can just picture the scene, can’t you ? The full gravity of the incident had by now sunk into all assembled some prize Pillock had panicked and hit the Fire Alarm, so now the town Fire Brigade were on their way to the scene as senior members of staff led the whole school out of the building and onto the school playing fields.

The science lab was quite a large airy room, which to me seemed a hell of a lot bigger with me at one end and everybody else looking at me from what seemed then and now as an extraordinary large distance of safety.

Then the penny dropped, they thought it was me ! That I was the Bad Ass at the party and to ensure their total innocence from the shit storm we all knew was coming they had backed into the furthest corner away for me.

The Scull duly arrived took the room in at a glance, the relief on his face, that the science lab and his school were not actually on fire, lasted for about the same length of time as the time lapse of Fart to Ignition to Scream.

His eyes fell upon me, “You Boy…Come Here and Explain Yourself !”

“Me Sir ?”

“Yes You Sir !”

QUICK ASIDE : I’ve just thought of something, I have just realised that it’s probably because of this incident in my life that I look guilty even when I haven’t done anything. You know like going through the ‘Nothing To Declare’ Exit at an air terminal, looking guilty as Hell but you really… really have nothing to declare ! Just a thought.

Anyway, I should digress no further. Needless to say I was frog march out of the room with my right ear in the tight grasp of the Scull’s thumb and fore finger. He only let go because at that moment two gorillas in yellow water proof leggings and funny hats came thundering up the passageway towards us with an axe in one hand and a fire extinguisher in the other.

I won’t bore you with the exact details of what followed, other than to say I explained the entire incident in fantastic schoolboy logical detail, purely from the stance as an innocent witness’s point of view you understand.

No ! It was not my idea.

No ! I didn’t try to talk Sam out of it. It was a purely scientific experiment after all and I was as interested to find out the result as Sam was.

In addition, needless to say the Scull didn’t believe a word of it.

Upon receipt of the Matron’s report the Scull decided that Sam had suffered enough for one day. Having walked half naked through a giggling mob adding to the loss of his dignity, not to mention his pubes, that and a 6 inch long scorch mark which would probably cause him more pain and last longer than the pain I was about to receive.

Just to end upon a happy note you will be pleased to know that dear Sam suffered no lasting long term effects, and like me, probably went on to dine out on the story for many happy years. Yet, many years later I did hear from a mutual friend that in Sam’s version it was me who had the scorched arse.

He continued to impress the school with his farting abilities including a two toned one that resembled the horn on a passing diesel electric train. By the time, we left school to go on to greater things he was working on and had almost perfected the Doppler effect.

In case you were wondering, I know my loyal readers like all the details, Sam did reveal his secret and that was ‘Beecham’s Liver Pills’. I think they were a mild cure for constipation, although I never found out why he, at his age, may have been prescribed such a thing, maybe he hadn’t. Perhaps he had been pinching them off his mum…. which at one point led to wondering if she suffered the same side affect her son did…. What a Happy household that must have been, what’s that saying; “They who Fart together Stay together !” Or something like that.

Nevertheless, one thing I did find out, to my cost, was that over the years he had become immune to their laxative effects leaving him only with the side effect of his farting skills.

Why to my cost I hear you ask? Two things, you know the World War Two movie ‘The Damn Busters ? The one about Barnes Wallace and his Bouncing Bombs ! One rainy Saturday afternoon Sam and I went to the see the film… we had lunch at his house, this was the day he let me in on the secret of the Liver Pills and he gave me two to try.

Yep they worked !

We were having a whale of a time timing our farts to coincide with the aircraft bombing runs…. Remember I said he was immune…

I wasn’t !

There’s another famous British WWII move ‘ A Bridge Too Far,’ I could so easily re write that as a ‘Fart Too Many !!’

So in answer to Stan’s question; Who Farted? I Really Want to Know…

It was Sam !!!

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