"Dear Dr Vibbenstibben, why do all the stories in the newspapers suggest that lifts may be affected by the millennium bug? Surely lifts just go up and down when requested, and don't need to know what year, month, day or time it is. Or am I just a brainless git?" - Mr Reg Bumface, Lower Rabies, Lincolnshire.
Dr Vibenstein replies: Well, Mr Bumface, modern lifts are surprisingly intelligent. If the millennium bug is not corrected, the lifts will notice that the year has rolled over from 99 to 00, and will think, "Hey, it's only the year 1900, we haven't been invented yet," and will immediately cease to exist, sending passengers plummeting to their certain death. So, Mr Bumface, it would appear that yes, you are a brainless git.
"Dear Dr Vibbleson, I am 94 years old, and have just seen a very flashy but essentially uninformative promotional film on the BBC about digital television, which said that instead of the current analogue wavy things, the new digital telly will be broadcast as a big load of 0s and 1s. I'm a bit worried about this, because the wavy things look nice and soft and seem to go through me without any problems, but those 0s and 1s look as if they could do a lot of damage if a big stream of them hit you on the head. Why is the BBC bombarding us with all sorts of damaging radiation? I think it's a disgrace. It's not like the old days when it was all in black and white, and there was only one channel, and it only broadcast for twenty minutes a day, and we had to make our own entertainment. I'm 97, you know." - Mrs Elsie Parts (age 91), South West North London
Dr Vibenstein replies: Well, Mrs Parts, what the bloke out of One Foot In The Grave didn't mention in the film is that each 0 and 1 is very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very small indeed. Smaller than a particle from a tiny little speck of dust which has been put through a specially designed miniature liquidiser. And if you were to catch one of these flying 0s or 1s and look at it under a hugely powerful microscope, you'd probably just be able to see that each one is individually wrapped in microscopic bubblewrap before it leaves the transmitter, so there is very little danger of you being beaten to death by a stream of digital terrestrial television. Digital satellite transmissions, however, are another matter. I'd stay indoors with a hard hat on if I were you.
Important note: the BBC has asked us to point out that it is illegal to catch the 0s and 1s from digital TV transmissions because it degrades the picture quality. Furthermore, any stray blocks of colour on digital TV pictures which seem to have been caused by the signal being digitised poorly, are in fact due to people catching the bits and keeping them for their own personal use, so please don't try this at home. Thank you.
"Dear Dr Vibbnnnnstnnn, I've just murdered my wife and I was wondering if you knew of a good way to dispose of the body without arousing suspicion. I'm Frank Sinatra the plumber, by the way, not Frank Sinatra the late singer." - Mr Frank Sinatra, Balding, Lancashire
Dr Vibenstein replies: Well, Mr Sinatra, I would suggest that the best way to dispose of your late wife's body is to wrap it in a blanket, take it to the woods, and set it on fire. With a bit of luck it will smoulder for days without being noticed, and will eventually reach sufficient temperature to completely destroy all traces of her. If it doesn't, you can always use spontaneous human combustion as your excuse. Hope this helps.
"Uuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhh............. Dear Dr Vibbbbbbbbbbbllelelelele.......
Can you........ give me............. uuuuuhhhhhh....... a good...........
handover........ Hanover........ hangover cure? Uuuuuuuuuhhhhhhh.
Quick as you can, please. And can you keep the
noise down? Uuuuhhhhhhhhh." - Mr Rodney "Unstable" Stapleton, Tch,
North Wales.
Dr Vibenstein replies: Oh dear oh dear oh dear. Well, Mr Stapleton, I must admit that I had half a pint of shandy myself last night, so I appreciate what you're going through. Unfortunately, research into hangover cures is terribly underfunded by the government, so this is something of a grey area. Personally, I always drink a gallon and a half of water, then go to sleep for three days, but of course this doesn't work for everyone. Have you tried pumping yourself full of heroin?
"Dear Dr Vibraphone, what becomes of the broken hearted?" - Mr Smokey Robinson, Detroit, Michigan, USA.
Dr Vibenstein replies: Well, Smokey, first of all I'd like to thank you for giving me the opportunity to set the record straight on this matter. Every songwriter subscribes to the myth that hearts can break. That is, every songwriter except Mark E Smith from The Fall, who writes songs about toads and cabbages and Shakin' Stevens, as far as I can make out. Anyway, the fact of the matter is, the heart is a muscle, it expands and contracts, and is not brittle, therefore cannot be broken. It can be cut open with a sharp knife, but not broken. The only exception to this rule is a heart which has been frozen in a vat of liquid nitrogen, and then dropped on the floor, causing it to shatter. However, the act of freezing the heart would almost certainly kill the heart's owner outright. I therefore conclude that nothing becomes of the broken hearted. Hope this answers your question.
"Dear Dr Vibenstring, please settle an argument.
My friend insists that many hands make light work,
while I firmly believe that too many cooks spoil the
broth. Who's right? There's five pounds resting on
the outcome." - Mrs Joan Trousers, Felching, Lincolnshire.
Dr Vibenstein replies: Well now, it seems that your friend must be some kind of mental case. Obviously you can't make a light work with just your hands, however many you have, unless you switch it on, which only takes one finger. And as for your soup spoilage theory, independent research shows that the number of cooks who spoiled the broth in 1997 fell within acceptable levels. Therefore, it seems you are both wrong and I am right. I look forward to receiving that fiver at your earliest convenience.
"Dear Dr Vib, why is it that when you drop a piece of toast, it always, ALWAYS lands butter-side down?" - Mr Tony Anthrax, Eyesore, Sussex.
Dr Vibenstein replies: Well, Mr Anthrax, it's a little-known fact that toast and butter are sworn enemies. Toast is jealous of the creamy smoothness of butter, while butter similarly resents being smeared all over hard, rough toast. For that reason, whenever a piece of buttered toast should accidentally fall, the toast uses its superior might to flip itself over, thus ensuring that the butter hits the ground first. It really is that simple.
"Dear Dr Vibbenstribben, what's the easiest way to make an atomic bomb?" - Mr Saddam Hussein, Baghdad.
Dr Vibenstein replies: Well, Mr Saddam, it's actually much easier than most people think. All you have to do is buy an ordinary bomb, from your local explosives emporium, then carefully open it up and fill it with atoms. I'm not aware of any trade embargo on atoms, so you should be able to procure them with relative ease. However, a word of caution: explosives can be dangerous, so you really should ask an adult to help you. Good luck!
"Dear Dr Vvvvvvvvvvvvvvv, the wife and I were enjoying a romantic candle-lit breakfast the other evening, when the candle went out. As you can imagine, this threw our carefully planned evening into utter chaos - total darkness, Corn Flakes everywhere, that kind of thing. What I'd really like to know is, why does dropped toast always land butter-side down?" - Mr Davenport Thraggg, Splink, Wiltshire.
Dr Vibenstein replies: You're a very silly man. Go away.
"Dear Dr Vibratingstein, why are oranges orange? It seems terribly unfair that all other fruits have to share colours like red or green, while the orange gets a colour all to itself."- Mrs Betty Molko, Dundee.
Dr Vibenstein replies: Woah, woah, hold on a minute there Mrs M. You've got it all arse about face, if I may say so. It is, in fact, the colour orange which gets a fruit all to itself, while the other colours have to share. This is because the original president of the Fruit Naming Board, Dr Carl Buttock, was colour blind, and could only recognise the colour orange. He couldn't be sure of the colours of other fruits, so he gave them non-commital names like "apple" and "kumquat". The only other fruit which slipped through the net was the grape, hence the reason why "white" grapes are green and "black" grapes are sort of purple.
"Dear Prof, why is water so wet?" - Mr Percy DiCapprio, Blimey, Lancashire.
Dr Vibenstein replies: Well, Mr DiCapprio, the thing about water is that it can exist in many forms. If you heat it, it becomes a gas, which is a neat trick, except that it also becomes very hot, thus rendering it useless. If you freeze it, it becomes a solid, which of course means that it also becomes uselessly hard, to the extent that it would almost certainly kill you if a great quantity of it fell on your head. So, to answer your question, water is wet because if it were dry, you couldn't swim in it. And in future I'll thank you to remember that I'm a Doctor, not a Professor.
"Dearest Dr V, what colour of underpants are you wearing?" - Ms Brianna Headcase, Thump, Ayrshire.
Dr Vibenstein replies:
Oh dear. Well, Ms H, to be brutally frank, I was in a terrible rush this
morning, so I'm afraid I'm not
wearing any. I do hope this isn't too much of a disappointment for
you.
"Dear Dr V, there's been a lot of predictable media hype about this drink called absinth lately. Can you tell us the facts? Is it really illegal in most of the world outside the UK, does it really make you go blind and impotent, and is it really made from dynamite?"- Rev. B. Grape, Manchester.
Dr Vibenstein replies: Well, Reverend, these are the facts as I see them. Absinth is indeed illegal in most of the world, but not because it makes you blind and impotent, oh no. The ban was imposed in 1792 by the king of France, because it was considered disrespectful to the Sacred Goat of Toulouse ("absinth" being the French word for "goat", of course). It does actually send you blind and impotent, but this was not considered a factor in its prohibition. The exact ingredients of absinth remain a closely guarded secret, but I think the lack of wild toads around all the world's major absinth factories speaks for itself. Oh, and incidentally, it is still legal in the UK, because we hate the French. *
"Dear Dr V, there's been a lot of predictable media hype about genetically modified food lately, even more than there has about absinth in fact. However, I'm a bit thick, so can you tell me if these so called 'Frankenstein foods' are really dangerous, or is it all a load of old pony?" - Mrs Zoë Slim, North West Greater Inner East London.
Dr Vibenstein replies: Well, Mrs Slim, it's really too early to say. Personally I don't think they're dangerous at all, and I suspect that the newly-coined slang term "Frankenstein foods" is merely an attempt to discredit my own company, Vibenstein Foods, producers of variable quality produce since 1997. Having said that, I am a mad professor, so my opinion can probably be discounted. Anyway, as with most things, there's only one way to find out, so I say eat them, but please note that I accept no responsibility if eating genetically modified foods causes you to grow an extra toe or something.
"Dear Dr V, how long is a piece of string?" - Mr Vernon Cabbage-Splitter, Swingoutsistershire.
Dr Vibenstein replies:
Oh dear. Well, Mr Cabbage-Splitter, EU regulations state that the
length of the standard European piece of string (or "Eurostring" as we
must now learn to call it) is precisely 13.67 centimetres. It's possible
that you may have non-standard pieces of string hidden away in secret places
in your house or workplace, but please be aware that these will become
illegal after the UK joins the Common European String agreement on the
1st of January next year.
* Absinth
is available in the UK from Vibenstein Foods plc, 14 Purple Elephant Street,
Glasgow, Wales G1 1XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX. Please
note that this product contains genetically modified ingredients.
