Thread by @jlukeroberts

OK 1 like = 1 alternative dystopia

A world just like our own, but they never invented biscuits so people dunk any old stuff in their tea. Toast, boiled potatoes, cheese, meat.

A world just like our own, but there's zeppelins in all the buildings so you have to sort of squeeze past them to get anywhere.

A world just like our own, but Evel Knievel was called "Morullyambivullent Knorullyambivullent" and his stunts weren't incredibly difficult feats, they were just really weird. Like "I will drive this car straight next to a ramp" or "I will ride my moped while saying 'motorbike.'"

A world just like our own, but there isn't a word for sand.

A world just like our own, but when the apple fell on Newton's head he invented the helmet.

A world just like our own, but there's an authoritarian worldwide theocracy which decrees that it is sinful to have a chat out of wedlock, so you have to marry someone if you want to speak to them. This makes things very difficult.

A world just like our own, but double decker buses have a basement.

A world just like our own, but the Creme Egg was named the Ovoidal Semen Sack so never really took off. Even with the "Why do you eat yours?" advertising campaign.

A world just like our own, but the milk man is a man who comes to the house and feeds your young from one of his many teats. He has a long moustache and one eye. And he wears a hat.

A world just like our own, but Martin Clunes is POTUS.

A world just like our own, but your buttocks are owned by the state.

A world just like our own, but the office supplies company "Staples" is named "Treasury-Tags".

A world just like our own, but Karl Marx was just a man who created a system for evaluating people called Karl / Carl. Stalin & co. still ran with it as a political system, and the cold war was mainly America going "This just doesn't seem nice for Carls."

A world just like our own, but Aardman are in charge of all the news programmes, so there's a big delay between something happening and finding out about it because all the newsreaders are made of plasticine and it takes ages to move them a bit and take a still and move them a bi

A world just like our own, but GIFs are the main form of entertainment. So you go to the cinema and there's two hours of adverts, and then you watch the GIF you came for.

A world just like our own, but in tennis the word for Zero isn't Love, it's Bumhole. So the umpire might say "30 - Bumhole" for example. Also, this means Cryptic Crossword writers have to be a bunch more inventive.

A world just like our own but you have to pay to fart.

A world just like our own, but Bert slipped off the roof and died in the first few minutes of Mary Poppins, leaving Mary an emotional wreck for the rest of the film, and definitely in no condition to look after children.

A world just like our own, but bustles are still in.

A world just like our own, but loads of time travellers from different eras turned up in Hitler's nursery at the same time to kill him, and whenever one of them would go to kill him a new time traveller would pop up in the way and be killed acccidentally.

A world just like our own, but the Titanic never hit that Iceberg, and the film they made about it really lacked a sense of jeopardy.

A world just like our own, but surfaces are a lot slippier so we've had to adapt to that.

A world just like our own, But Torville and Dean went into real estate.

A world just like our own, but every member of the elite has a dedicated percussionist / swannee whistler to do Panto style sound effects for every accident they have.

A world just like our own, but the TV series Sliders (1995-2000) was never made.

A world just like our own, but Scrabble uses numbers not letters, so you have to use your numbers to write a number on the board and, as long as that's a real number, it's allowed and, to be honest, it's far too easy a game.

A world just like our own, but pizzas have the toppings on the bottom and they're called "bottomings" and actually it's pretty cool because the tasty bit goes straight on your tongue.

A world just like our own, but after making The Invention of Lying, & realising it was just the premise of Liar Liar inverted, RG proceeded to make photo-negative remakes of all Jim Carrey's films. So a film about a Mask which takes away your powers when you put it on (1/?)

and a film about a man with the opposite of a quiff who farts out of his mouth and does crime against pets and a film about a man who is in the real world watching a show about the population of the planet being in a TV show and a film about everybody but Andy Kaufman and (2/?)

a film about Batman fighting a supervillain who speaks very plainly & directly without even using metaphor or figures of speech or anything and a film about a man who really wants to remember Kate Winslet and a film about a very slow hedgehog and a very nice scientist and (3/?)

a film not about two men one of whom was dumber than the other one, but about two men one of whom was *less* dumb than the other etcetera etcetera (4/4)

A world just like our own, but food is very spicy by default and you can use "Mild Sauce" to cool it down.

A world just like our own, but waterflumes aren't fun for some reason.

A world just like our own, but they don't have Ant and Dec they have Ant and Ant and Ant and Ant and Ant and Ant and Ant and Ant and Ant and Ant and Dec and they always stand in the same order so you know which Ant is which.

A world just like our own, but time is metric and lengths are measured in grams.

A world just like our own, but there's a silent 'b' at the end of bumb.

A world just like our own, but bees are plaid not stripey.

A world just like our own, but you have to glue the leaves back on the trees in the spring.

A world just like our own, but Gwen Stefani's song "Hollaback Girl" doesn't have the bit where she spells "bananas" you have to figure it out for yourself.

A world just like our own, but there *is* an “i” in “teiam”.

A world just like our own, but no one thinks Nicola Tesla was cool.

A world just like our own, but the Earl of Sandwich invented pessaries, so they’re called sandwiches there. So a doctor might say “Watch out, pal! I’m going to stick a sandwich right up you”.

[40] A world just like ours, but in TV series The Bill (1983 - 2010) they only ever filmed the actors from the shins down, like in the titles.

[41] A world just like ours, but the Village People dressed up as Harry Potter, Dorothy, Dracula, Willy Wonka and Huckleberry Finn, like they were doing World Book Day

[42] A world just like ours, but the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice (1995) was filmed entirely in the pond

[43] A world just like ours, but Popeye died of malnutrition because he wouldn’t eat anything other that spinach

[44] A world just like ours but, in his entire professional career, Bruce Forsyth never once got a response from an audience when he said “Nice to see you, to see you...!” And he still opened with it Every. Single. Time.

[45] A world just like ours, but the phrase isn't "when life gives you lemons, make lemonade" it's "when bad things happen, carbonate them and add sugar".

[46] A world just like ours, but Mario prioritised his plumbing business.

[47] A world just like our own, but countries don't have flags, they have noises. The UK's is the noise of a plastic ruler going "duh-duh-duh-duh-doing" off the side of a desk. France's is an angry goose honking. The USA's is the country's name chanted over and over by a bellend.

Oh no there's a side thread here.

[48] A world just like our own, but cats are friendly and dogs are mean.

[49] A world just like our own, but pans don't have handles so you always burn your hands when you take them off the hob.

[50] A world just like our own, but Ringo Starr narrates the movements of *all* trains not just Thomas.

[51] A world just like our own, but the keys on pianos are in random order so pianists really have to work for it.

[52] A world just like our own, but horses have really springy feet.

[53] A world just like our own, but when you click your fingers your nose falls off.

[54] A world just like our own, but trousers are illegal.

[55] A world just like our own, but Diana Ross is called Diana Rossfromfriends.

[56] A world just like our own, but you *can* get better than a Kwik Fit Fitter.

[57] A world just like our own, but Mr Motivator took his wife's name and so is known as Mr Critchlow

[58] A world just like our own, but JFK caught the bullet in his teeth and followed his Presidency with a lucrative career as a magician.

[59] A world just like our own, but Hamburglar had a nurturing childhood and never turned to a life of crime. His name is still Hamburglar because that was the name of the doctor who saved his mum's life and she promised.

[60] A world just like our own, but you get three fingers in a Twix.

[61] A world just like our own, but maths is cool.

[62] A world just like our own, but Edith Piaf regretted five things.

[63] A world just like our own, but everyone has a practice coffin to help them get used to the idea.

[64] A world just like our own, but Nike's slogan is "I'd like to see you draw a better logo".

[65] A world just like our own, but McDonalds diversified from the Happy Meal range and offer a number of different emotional options (Sad Meal, Bored Meal, I Don't Know Kind of Flat I Guess Meal, Finally Got My Meds Balanced Meal etc.) (1/2)

They had to discontinue the Terrified Meal because the profit margins on pocket-sized interdimensional squid gods was too low. (2/2)

[66] A world just like our own, but Disneyland has more of a Summerisle-from-The-Wicker-Man vibe. It's very cheap to stay in the onsite hotels because of the likelihood of a naked Mickey doing pagan dancing up against the other side of the door.

[67] A world just like our own, but when people sneeze other people don't say "Bless You" they say "Congratulations on Your Working Nose".

[68] A world just like our own, but The Beatles never split up, and indeed added a member each year.

[69] A world just like our own, but what we would call "A 69" they call "i!" It's so tricky to intonate a lower case but exclamatory i, that people very rarely talk about it.

[70] A world just like our own, but the government has banned leaning. You have to stand straight even if your legs are tired.

[71] A world just like our own, but sausages are illegal. This has led to blackmarket sausages and sausage-specific speak easies.

[72] A world just like our own, but President Nixon was called President Noxin and he got away with it.

[73] A world just like our own, but Godzilla was a normal sized lizard (About 10 cm) and the movie was rubbish.

[74] A world just like our own, but the days of the week aren't named after gods, they're named after units of time. So it goes Weekday, Secondday, Monthday, Minuteday, Hourday, Centuryday, and then Monthday again because they forgot they already had one.

[75] A world just like our own, but everything speeds up whenever someone screams.

[76] A world just like our own, but peeing is illegal.

[77] A world just like our own, but there was a terrible massacre committed in the Cadbury's Curly Wurly factory, so everyone says "Curly Wurly" in really sombre and serious tones.

[78] A world just like our own, but Les Miserables is performed with strong French accents like Allo Allo.

[79] A world just like our own, but there was a terrorist attack on the city of Bath, and Lush has gone into administration because their main product line (Bath Bombs) now seems in very poor taste.

[80] A world just like our own, but you have to eat all the dust you create.

[81] A world just like our own, but it is illegal to be sad.

[82] A world just like our own, but the standard size for a Pony is Shetland Pony size. Shetland Ponies are as much smaller than Ponies as they are in our world, but Ponies are smaller so that means Shetland Ponies are much smaller. Horses have sharp teeth and eat humans.

[83] A world just like our own, but the robots have revolted and overthrown society. The Prime Minister is a Self-Checkout Machine, the Home Secretary is a Roomba and E.R.N.I.E is Chancellor.

[84] A world just like our own, but the only letters are plosives so there's spit flying everywhere.

[85] A world just like our own, but there's paste for cleaning everything, not just teeth. So nipplepaste, kneepaste, tonguepaste, armpitpaste, eyepaste etc. and there's a special brush for each one too and bathrooms are very cramped.

[86] A world just like our own, but instead of passwords and security questions, you have to describe your own gentials precisely enough for a mid-level police artist to do a sketch.

[87] A world just like our own, but trampolines have been replaced with "tranquilines", which stay very calm and still when you jump on them.

[88] A world just like our own, but in movies humans are performed by dogs in mocap suits which are then run through a computer. So in e.g. A Streetcar Named Desire you have to get used to Blanche, Stella and Stanley crawling around on all fours and sniffing each other's bums.

[89] A world just like our own, but you can’t say anything these days.

[90] A world just like our own, but The Monkees got really embarrassed when they realised they’d spelt their name wrong and pledged to never sing again.

[91] A world just like our own, but President Abraham Lincoln was followed by President B-braham Lincoln, then President C-braham Lincoln, then President D-braham Lincoln and so on.

[92] A world just like our own, but guns don't go "bang" they go "boing" which people find so much fun that they shoot at things a lot more.

[93] A world just like our own, but birds have human lips.

[94] A world just like our own, but John Steinbeck took out any reference to water in The Grapes of Wrath and renamed it The Raisins of Wrath.

[95] A world just like our own, but ladders have such a high density of rungs that you can't even fit you feet between them.

[96] A world just like our own, but the following thigns are classed as "Not Manly": bricks, cauliflower, enjoying a breeze, walking, sitting on a sofa, having friends, taking more than three bites to eat *anything*, forward planning, table football, hygiene.

[97] A world just like our own, but socks are hard like shoes are, so you have to put your shoes on over, effectively, another pair of shoes.

[98] A world just like our own, but John Wilkes Booth shot the actors instead and everyone stood up and clapped because the play was *awful* but no one mentions that in our reality because Mr President drew focus.

[99] A world just like our own, but eggs are sold pre-cracked so cooking is less effort.

[100] A world just like our own, but the game is called "Fore" and when you hit the ball you shout "Golf!"

[101] A world just like our own, but nobody's realised we can sit down.

[102] A world just like our own, but Toblerone is not pointy it's just oblong shaped like most chocolate bars and people are much less fussed about it.

[103] A world just like our own, but magicians don't take the rabbit out of the hat to show you, they just assure you it's in there.

[104] A world just like our own but Archduke Franz Ferdinand was called Archduke Duran Duran, and when the band we know as Franz Ferdinand had to come up with a name they were stumped because there already was a Duran Duran. They finally settled for the name Billie Eilish.

[105] A world just like our own, but everyone whispers their secrets into a "Secrets Bear" but the bear is actually secretly recording the secrets and sending directly to the government.

[106] A world just like our own, but chess is much more realistic.

[107] A world just like our own, but we'd put 'th' after a number, they put 'rd' and when we'd put 'nd' they put 'nth' and vice versa, and instead of 'first' they put 'sock'. So it goes "sock, seconth, thith, fourrd, fifrd, sixrd, sevenrd, eighrd, ninrd, tenrd" etc.

[108] A world just like our own, but not saying boo to a goose is not a sign of cowardice but of kindness and bigger picture thinking.

[109] A world just like our own, but you don't borrow books from a library, you borrow ham. You can keep it for two weeks, and do whatever you like with it except eat it. This ham is never cleaned.

[110] A world just like our own, but vacuum cleaners go "yum yum yum" or "eurgh" when they suck stuff up.

[111] A world just like our own, but Dyson didn't come up with bagless vacuum cleaners, but vacuum cleaners that use 12 bags minimum.

[112] A world just like our own, but Nike's slogan is "Don't do it then, it's no skin off our nose"

[113] A world just like our own, but the McDonald's slogan is "Hopefully you had one of these in childhood because then the taste will be nostalgic for you."

[114] A world just like our own, but you get a real crocodile with every purchase from Lacoste.

[115] A world just like our own, but US Talk Shows are much more collegiate and less heirarchical and the whole audience just chats with each other and the celebrities and it's very hard on the camera crew and editing team.

[116] A world just like our own, but there's tentacles bloody everywhere.

[117] A world just like our own, but whenever you say Flannel a camel with colourful flannel skin arrives, shouts "did somebody say flannel!?" and then does a dance and he won't leave until you thank him sincerely. Nobody says flannel very often.

[118] A world just like our own but everyone is Margaret Atwood. This means Margaret Atwood never writes anything, because everyone else is also Margaret Atwood, and they'd just read it and go "My *six-year-old* could have written this," because their 6yo is also Margaret Atwood.

[119] A world just like our own, but Spiderman is unhyphenated.

[120] A world just like our own, but all the Tuesdays are saved up and used in one big go at the end.

[121] A world just like our own, but Tom Cruise is Pope.

[122] A world just like our own, but Winnie the Pooh keeps whispering to Piglet "I'm not wearing trousers and so long as I act like it's normal I'm gonna keep on getting away with it."

[123] A world just like our own, but professional mathematicians, physicists etc. all say "potato" after every number.

[124] A world just like our own, but chickens lay bacon.

[125] A world just like our own, but they still haven't invented the wheel. They have invented pretty much all the other things we have, but not the wheel. They have cars, but they move on skis, and there are artifical snow machines everywhere.

[126] A world just like our own, but everyone grows a foot a year. Both height wise, and also the things that you get on the end of your legs.

[127] A world just like our own, but they call "Feet" "Leg Hands." As in "He was Six Leg Hands Tall."

[128] A world just like our own, but phones have autocorrect *but for opinions*.

[129] A world just like our own, but crime is double illegal.

[130] A world just like our own, but the USA's national bird is a pterodactyl.

[131] A world just like our own, but javelin is a two player sport and you have to catch it and throw it back and it has a high fatality rate, you know, for a sport.

[132] A world just like our own, but you make a cup of tea by putting the tea bag in your mouth and then pouring the boiling water in.

[133] A world just like our own, but knees are rationed (3 per family).

[134] A world just like our own, but poems must rhyme on pain of death.

[135] A world just like our own, but "Happy Days" is called "Slippy Days" and it's set in the Ice Age.

[136] A world just like our own, but a real man called Wario (who was an anti-plumber - his job was breaking pipes) sued Nintendo for defamation and won, and Nintendo was bankrupted and all the pokemon died.

[137] A world just like our own, but everyones bottom has a tongue as well.

[138] A world just like our own, but you wouldn't know it to look at it.

[139] A world just like our own, but there's not a single goddamn monkey in the whole place.

[140] A world just like our own, but Jumanji really happened, and they're still mass producing the boardgame and selling loads of copies.

[141] A world just like ours, but it smells a bit... musty? Does it smell a bit musty to you? I think it smells a bit musty. No? Maybe I'm imagining it. Does it though? Is it my upper lip? Does my upper lip smell musty? No, the world does smell musty, I'm sure of it. Right?

[142] A world just like ours, but France is imaginary.

[143] A world just like our own, but COWS are on the stamps and THE QUEEN is pumped for her milk.

[144] A world just like our own, but the superrich are poor and the superduperrich are just about managing. Only the superduperwhooperrich are comfortable, but they only donate to charity when it helps there tax returns.

[145] A world just like our own, but limes are the main ones and lemons are the supporting roles.

[146] A world just like our own, but you've learnt some effing manners.

[147] A world just like our own, but one man is judge, jury, executioner and flautist.

[148] A world just like our own, but OK GO never struck on the idea of making fun videos.

[149] A world just like our own, but Origami is done backwards, so as a sign of peace people make cranes into paper.

[150] A world just like our own, but it's considered lucky to find a hair in your food.

[151] A world just like our own, but more so.

[152] A world just like our own, but all the Bond themes were done by Pierce Brosnan.

[153] A world just like our own, but no one thought to draw boxes in comic strips so most of them are really confusing and everything seems to be happening at the same time.

[154] A world just like our own, but people are much prouder of their nipples.

[155] A world just like our own, but these categories are included in the national census:

Who's Your Favourite Spice Girl?
Average Stool Consistency? (1-10 Bristol Scale)
Does Your Back Hurt?
Religion You Like Least?
Do Hats Suit You? (Y/N)
Where Did I Leave My Keys?

[156] A world just like our own, but in pantomimes they take a real horse or cow and dress it up as two people.

[157] A world just like our own, but Chairman Mao's Little Red Book was a Big Red Book as he traded portability for including fun pictures.

[158] A world just like our own, but Little and Large wasn't a double act, but a solo act who would oscillate between two very different sizes live on stage for an adoring audience.

[159] A world just like our own, but in 2010 Kim Jong-il named Britney Spears as his heir apparent and she became Supreme Leader of North Korea on his death a year later. International observers expecting a liberalisation of the regime were dissappointed. (1/2)

But, from a PR perspective, she was an improvement. Every missile or nuclear test, and every new infringement of international law was followed by a cheeky declaration "oops - I did it again!" which was hard not to warm to. (2/2)

[160] A world just like our own, but there's no wrong way to spell Unnecesary.

[161] A world just like our own, but that dickhead Paul is in charge. Yeah, *that* Paul.

[162] A world just like our own, but you are given your gravestone at birth and carry it around through life, chiselling your CV into it as you go.

The first thing on everyone's CV is "chiseller".

[163] A world just like our own, but what's sauce for the goose *isn't* sauce for the gander.

[164] A world just like our own, but there are bras for shoulder blades, buttocks, tonsils and testicles, and everyone wears them.

[165] A world just like our own, but in West Side Story whenever anyone clicks their fingers an annoyed waiter turns up to take their order.

[166] A world just like our own, but the tooth fairy leaves good quality meats and fish under your pillow.

[167] A world just like our own but Apple's slogan is "A thank you would be nice."

[168] A world just like our own, but every story has a beginning, middle, end *and* basic guidelines to washing machine maintenance.

[169] A world just like our own, but Father Christmas also leaves a baby to look after.

[170] A world just like our own, but the Easter Bunny doesn't leave eggs for children to find, it leaves eggs for Colorectal Surgeons to find. It goes round late on Easter Saturday, wearing medical grade latex gloves, inserting sturdy chocolate eggs into inpatient's rectums.

[171] A world just like our own, but champagne is named by smashing a boat on it.

[172] A world just like our own, but you *would* steal a handbag.

[173] A world just like our own, but before you see the dentist you see the dental hygienist, and before that you see the dental critic who just looks at your teeth and hurls abuse relating to their upkeep at you.

[174] A world just like our own, but to cut down on harmful emissions you're only allowed to use your car for dogging.

[175] A world just like our own, but the song goes "my anaconda don't want none unless you've got buns, hun - oh yes sorry I should have mentioned I have an anaconda I can understand why that was confusing."

[176] A world just like our own, but hourglasses don't have sand in they have beef mince.

[177] A world just like our own but funhouse mirrors are the norm (mirror wise).

[178] A world just like our own but vampires aren't even sexy.

[179] A world just like our own, but bakers and ducks are in cahoots. It's pretty much impossible to get hold of a fresh loaf because they've always given it to the bloody ducks first.

[180] A world just like our own, but the phrase "wake up and smell the coffee" is "WAKE UP YOU SILLY TWAT" and you have to shout it right in their ear.

[181] A world just like our own, but actually everyone's quite happy with comic sans.

[182] A world just like our own, but the geese are in charge.

[183] A world just like our own, but close-up magicians are respected.

[184] A world just like our own, but gravity is reserved for the elite.

[185] A world just like our own, but just like how some lizards drop their tails when they get scared, when humans get frightened our bum falls off.

[186] A world just like our own, but one of the layers in trifle is olives.

[187] A world just like our own, but every family has a bread winner and the way they have to try to win bread is in dog fighting tournaments.

[188] A world just like our own, but if you blink everybody dies.

[189] A world just like our own, but everything's a bit more tricksy.

[190] A world just like our own, but some christmas crackers have a curse in instead of a joke.

[191] A world just like our own, but jelly just won't wobble. You can shake it and shake it, but no: Totally unwobbleable. Where's the fun in that?

[192] A world just like our own, but opinions are like arseholes: everyone's got bloody loads of them.

[193] A world just like our own but if you don't look good in hats you're made to wear a hat.

[194] A world just like our own, but it's a crime to fall in love.

[195] A world just like our own, but there's a law that you have to finish every book you start reading, even if it's a Martin Amis.

[196] A world just like our own, but the song "Twist and Shout" is called "Twist and Shout and Fart and Sing and Lick and Cry and Kneel and Jump and Bite and Help and Eat and Love and Pray and Burn."

[197] A world just like our own, but the escalators at Cutty Sark DLR work even less frequently.

[198] A world just like our own, but there are prizes for trying.

[199] A world just like our own, but the only films being made are films from the Fast and Furious franchise, and the franchise is a little different from our own because the main characters are mainly interested in dogging (possible link to world 174??)

[200] A world just like our own, but there are 34 films in the Police Academy franchise, including "Police Academy 8: Officers In A Huff," "Police Academy 14: Mission to Morpeth," "PA 20: Some Ghosts Join the Team," "PA 21: Oh No Our Police Hats are Haunted," (1/2)

"PA 22: Hey Our Shirts Are Haunted Too!" "PA 23: I'm Sick of the Ghosts," "PA 24: Let's Get Rid of the Ghosts," "PA 25: Right, Now Let's Get Rid of that Sound Effects Guy Too," "PA 26: Assignment Malibu Beach," "PA 27: We Should Never Have Killed the Sound Effects Guy."

[201] A world just like our own, but the escalators at Cutty Sark DLR Station work more often than now, but never when you need them too, and seriously how can Cutty Sark DLR's escalators be so terrible and who are they hiring to fix them because they're obviously incompetent.

[202] A world just like our own, but the team behind the Sonic the Hedgehog game did a lot more research into what hedgehogs are like, and the game is a lot worse for it.

[203] A world just like our own but once a week an official comes round and talks to you in great detail about everything you've flushed down the loo that week.

[204] A world jusb like our own, bub bhere aren'b any lebber 'b's so bhey have to make do wibh 'b's insbead.

[205] A world just like our own, but the people who are in charge of maintaining and fixing the escalators at Cutty Sark DLR Station are responsible for fixing everything mechanical all over the world & it's a bloody nightmare because they're so bad at it that it beggars belief.

[206] A world just like our own, but being nice to people is some kind of crime!!

[207] A world just like our own, but snakes have one big foot on the opposite end to their head.

[208] A world just like our own, but a lot more trouble than it's worse.

[209] A world just like our own, but you know that sign they had up at Cutty Sark DLR Station a few weeks ago? The one that said "This Escalator is Out of Service to Improve Reliability" or something like that when it was closed for the umpteenth time in the last however (1/?)

and you thought "That's a bloody nerve - improve reliability eh? This is an object lesson in unreliability right here! The last time it was closed can't have been more than a week ago! Improve reliability? Chance would be a fine fucking thing." You know that sign, right? (2/?)

Well, in this world, *all* signs are as annoying and redundant & just fucking irritating as that one. I mean they might as well only put up a sign telling you when the escalator *is* working it would be more useful in Cutty Fucking Sark DL-cocking-R Station, I can tell (3/?)

you. (4/4)

[210] A world just like our own, but microwave ovens are so small you can't even fit a saucer in I mean what's the point in that.

[211] A world just like our own, but whenever you're having a good cry Brian Blessed turns up and says "CHEER UP LOVE GIVE US A SMILE THINGS AREN'T AS BAD AS ALL THAT!!" and then tries to encourage you to do some star jumps.

[212] A world just like our own, but there's three taps in the sink one for hot water, one for cold water, and one for vegetable soup. You have to let the soup run for a while because it's been sitting in the pipes for ages.

[213] A world just like our own, but that sense of guilt you get when you, for example, heavily criticise (in a public forum) the escalator maintenance in a particular DLR station, and then remember there are real people behind the escalator maintenance and (1/?)

they have feelings like anybody, and they probably feel really low that they can't seem to do their job right at all, even though it's probably not their fault, it's probably just some issue specific to those particular escalators & the particular (historical) construction (2/?)

of that specific DLR Station and they have to be the public face of a fundamentally flawed set of escalators that there isn't a simple way to fix or change or mend and *that's* not what they signed up for! They signed up to fix escalators & make people happy that there are (3/?)

reliably working escalators in Cutty Sark DLR Station - and it crushes them everyday that they can't bring people that joy, and then here they go and stumble over a comic Twitter thread about parralel worlds and it's giving them some light relief from their pretty much (4/?)

constant anxieties - made worse, of course, by having to work during a global pandemic - and they start to laugh and they *do* feel better and then suddenly they get to a bit in that thread criticising them *specifically* and they're brought crashing back to reality (5/?)

and they just wanted ten, maybe twelve minutes of not being so horribly self-conscious & you took that from them, you *took that from them*. And your guilt gets worse as you think about them, & you feel guilty that you're making this about yourself, like *you're* the victim (6/?)

and you feel guilty for feeling guilty, but it's not enough to release you from feeling guilty. Well, that's how everyone feels all the time in this world. Except for the Cutty Sark DLR escalator people who have a bloody lovely time. (7/7)

[214] A world just like our own, but unicorns DO exist and puppy's DON'T. And you can't pat a unicorn, you'll hurt your hand.

[215] A world just like our one, but over time your head hair sort of migrates around your body. It keeps its togetherness, though, so it's rather like a wig just roaming here and there around your surface.

[216] A world just like our own, but when you're celebrating good news, you toast with hampagne, which is a fizzy fermented pork drink, and you have to drink it all or your being rude.

[217] A world just like our own, but if someone elderly or pregnant or less able to stand than you gets on the bus you’re on you have to give up your life.

[218] A world just like our own, but it’s considered rude to sleep.

[219] A world just like our own, but you’re always playing Monopoly with your family.

[220] A world just like our own, but Crufts has a special category for sharks.

[221] A world just like our own, but trousers are *primarily* for ferrets, who occasionally let humans put their legs in them.

[222] A world just like our own but, once they go into their chrysalises they can transform into anything, not just butterflies.

[223] A world just like our own, but butterier.

[224] A world just like our own, but Playboy was filled only with pictures of founder Hugh Hefner naked and near naked in various submissive poses wearing bits of lingerie and swimsuits. And Page 3 of the Sun was all topless Rupert Murdochs (1/2)

Murdoch’s opinion on current events is in a speech bubble next to his head, rather than just parroted by all the journalists. (2/2)

[225] A world just like our own, but you can't say nothin' to noone.

[226] A world just like our own but "Broiling" doesn't exist it's just boiling pronounced wrong.

[227] A world just like our own, but the letters that pop up next to your head when you sleep aren't Zs they're Js.

[228] A world just like our own but "Tutus" are called "Flloffbelts."

[229] A world just like our own, but the character "Brutus" in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar is called "Tutus" (pronounced like the skirt). He wears tutus (the skirts) throughout, and Caesar says "Et Tu Tute?" and Tutus cries into his skirt when he does.

[230] A world just like our own but Steps, as a band, moved into writing literary fiction and they actually turned out to be not bad at it.

[231] A world just like our own but Steps are the face of Alcoholics Anonymous, and there's twelve of them, and they can't tell you they're the face of it because they've got to be anonymous.

[232] A world just like our own, but Steps is called Shteps because H is in it.

[233] A world just like our own but the members of ABBA are Olga, Benny, Orp and Eric so they're not called ABBA they're called OBOE.

[234] A world just like our own, but Prince's dad died and he had to give up his pop career to rule the kingdom. He was a just ruler, but his reign was a little purple. I'm sorry.

[235] A world just like our own but if you win the lottery the prize is a collection of venemous spiders, and they don't give you much warning before they drop them off so you'd better have some terrariums or something.

[236] A world just like our own but dentists spend most of the check up showing you their teeth and saying how much better than yours they are, and maybe doing some tricks with them like biting through a tin can and saying "Look how strong my teeth are, weakteethed cur."

[237] A world just like own own but rollercoasters don't have ends so you just fly off and land wherever.

[238] A world just like our own but when someone says "See you later, alligator!" you don't say "In a while, crocodile!" you say "You have been misinformed, I am a human person."

[239] A world just like our own, but everyone agrees which way the words "scone," "tomato" and "vase" are pronounced.

[240] A world just like our own, but Pret A Manger is fancy.

[241] A world just like our own, but soups come in vapour options.

[242] A world just like our own, but quiet... too quiet.

[243] A world just like our own but Pringles' slogan is "When You've Dumped These Potato Snacks Just Think What You Can Do With The Tube!"

[244] A world just like our own, but the Pringles mascot has a full beard.

[245] A world just like our own but when people use parentheses )brackets( they invert them )use them the opposite way round( so it seems like everything in parentheses )again, brackets( is not in parentheses )see above( and everything not in parentheses )same( is.

[246] A world just like our own, but croissants are called dough-moons.

[247] A world just like our own, but tricycles are the norm and bikes are only ridden by circus performers. Nobody has even *thought* of a unicycle.

[248] A world just like our own, but Health and Safety has been sectioned, then rehabilitated and is now on release, but heavily medicated and needs to see the psychiatrist for regular check up.

[249] A world just like our own, but it is written in law that you *can* say anus in church.

[250] A world just like our own, but sharks have their fins on their belly, so you get no warning when they're heading towards the beach.

[251] A world just like our own but Jaws (1975) was much more pro-shark.

[252] A world just like our own, but you know when a new pope has been elected because smoke comes out of that pope's cassock. Billowing out from underneath.

[253] A world just like our own but everyone thinks the moon landing was a film by Stanley Kubrick, but the Shining, Clockwork Orange, and Dr Strangelove really happened.

[254] A world just like our own but the moon was faked by Stanley Kubrick.

[255] A world just like our own but Tony the Tiger is the mascot of a funeral home and his slogan is "They're grrrrrrrrrieving."

[256] A world just like our own but Tony the Tiger is the mascot for bisto and his slogan is "It's grrrrrrrrrravy."

[257] A world just like our own but Tony the Tiger is the mascot for a cheese company and his slogan is "It's grrrrrrrruyere."

[258] A world just like our own but Tony the Tiger is the mascot for a genre of music that grew out of the UK Garage scene in the early 2000s and slogan is "It's grrrrrrrrime."

[259] A world just like our own but Tony the Tiger is more realistic and his slogan is "grrrrrrrrrrrrr."

[260] A world just like our own but bears can speak, yet they never say anything consequential.

[261] A world just like our own but the supernatural antagonist in Stephen King's It (1986) is a clownfish, and the protaganist of Pixar's Finding Nemo (2003) is a monstrous terror clown.

[262] A world just like our own but chicken eggs have toys in the middle like kinder eggs do.

[263] A world just like our own, but Shakespeare never died and everyone’s like “come on, enough with all the plays, dude.” But he just keeps writing them.

[264] A world just like our own, but the wheels on the bus go “wah wah wah, wah wah wah” and the babies on the bus go “Tickets, please! Tickets, please!” And the conductors on the bus go “round and round, round and round” all day long.

[265] A world just like our own but there’s no dips.

[266] A world just like our own, but the internet was never invented and the main form of entertainment is magic eye pictures.

[267] A world just like our own, but "rolling out the red carpet" is the equivalent of rolling your eyes. It is, needless to say, a lot more effort, but proportionately more derisive.

[268] A world just like our own but zoos are called oos.

[269] A world just like our own but a "Traffic Jam" is a (disgusting) spread.

[270] A world just like camels don't have humps and are thought of mainly as unfortunate horses.

[271] A world just like our own but you don't make the wish when you break the wishbone of the chicken but you select the chicken for slaughter in the first place.

[272] A world just like our own but a Wishing Well is a Well that Wishes and, most commonly, the wish is "I wish I wasn't a well."

[273] A world just like our own but exams in real life are made to be as similar as exams in dreams as possible.

[274] A world just like our own but Disney wrote a whole origin story for Donald Duck not wearing any trousers.

[275] A world just like our own but Mariah Carey is called Pariah Carey but it hasn't held her back.

[276] A world just like our own but a bit more wibbly, a lot more wobbly! A smidge more bibbly - a bunch more bobbly! A touch more nibbly? A whole lot nobbly!! It's insufferable.

[277] A world just like our own but Competitive Flamenco Dancing is scored on how many birds you can catch in the castanets.

[278] A world just like our own but all the stuff is a little bit smaller and all the people are a little bit bigger.

[279] A world just like our own but based on your suggestions and, to be honest, it's not gone well for you.

[280] A world just like our own, but they've lost the number 253 and, to be honest, you'd be surprised how little they miss it.

[281] A world just like our own but all castles are bouncy. This means there's no such thing as a "Bouncy Castle," they just call them castles. (UK edition)

[282] A world just like our own but all houses are bouncy. This means there's no such thing as a "Bouncy House," they just call them houses. (US edition)

[283] A world just like our own, but parrots are available to all.

[284] A world just like our own but people just keep inventing the wheel over and over again and never getting round (pun intended) to inventing anything else. They're freezing.

[285] A world just like our own but "Heads, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes" is called "Knees, Knees, Knees, and Knees" and it's, got to be said, it's a lot easier.

[286] A world just like our own but there's no Oxford Comma in "Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes," which causes absolutely no confusion.

[287] A world just like our own but - wouldn't you just know it - worse.

[288] A world just like our own but scaffolding is generally permanent.

[289] A world just like our own but King Kong is only thought of as *quite* a big monkey.

[290] A world just like our own, but pirates have loyal pigs on their shoulders, not parrots.

[291] A world just like our own but money *does* grow on trees, though the economy there is mainly based on bartering.

[292] A world just like our own but pavements are very wide, and roads are very thin. Cars are the same size as here, mind, so ultimately people just don't drive them anywhere.

[293] A world just like our own but Bingo Callers just say the number without any of that funny business.

[294] A world just like our own but the Blur Vs. Oasis thing escalated into a proper war. As the dust fell on two exhausted and depleted dynasties, Pulp slipped in to take the spoils.

[295] A world just like our own but people use semaphore to communicate in loud nightclubs. As such, that world has a lot more flag-related injuries than ours.

[296] A world just like our own but "flat as a pancake" means not flat at all, because pancakes there are big and bumpy and round.

[297] A world just like our own but Splash (1984) was not about the romantic relationship between a man and a half-fish-half-woman, but about a romantic relationship between a man and an all-fish (also known as a fish). It's much-loved.

[298] A world just like our own, but when you whistle your lips extend very far from you face in a big floppy tube.

[299] A world just like our own but they throw confetti for *everything*.

[300] A world just like our own but the pyramids have corks on the top to prevent anyone putting their eye out.

[301] A world just like our own, but T.S. Eliot (based on the poet T.S. Eliot) is a character in Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats. He has a solo song called "How dare you do this to my poems."

[302] A world just like our own but in 1983 the people of Wales voted in a referendum to change their national vegetable from a leek to a pineapple. Once the novelty wore off, they changed it back.

[303] A world just like our own but soil is viewed as a delicacy.

[304] A world just like our own but the name of the protaganist in the film Dr. No (1962) was Mr. Yes. It was the first in a long running series of films about Mr. Yes, including "From Russia With Thumbs Up," "You Only Assent Twice," and "A Quantum of Nodding."

[305] A world just like our own but there's four 'H's in yoghhhhurt.

[306] A world just like our own but undersalted.

[307] A world just like our own but there are some parties like an S-Club party.

[308] A world just like our own but they put big rubber stoppers in the end of waterflumes so everyone piles up at the bottom and it's awful.

[309] A world just like our own but the Great Lakes is a name reserved for the *best* lakes, not the biggest.

[310] A world just like our own, but Wordsworth kept his opinions about daffodils to himself.

[311] A world just like our own, but the bottom drawer is not the lowest drawer it's where you keep your bottoms.

[312] A world just like our own but hills are a lot stickier, so a lot of the time you can walk up really steep ones.

[313] A world just like our own, but the Flying Trapeze is often set death-defyingly *low*, so they really have to pull their legs in or they'll thwack straight into the floor.

[314] A world just like our own but burglars all dress like burglars (stripey top, black mask) so they're a lot easier to spot. Although recently some have started carrying strings of onions round their necks so people might think they're french people at a glance.

[315] A world just like our own but you have to have a license to own a bedsheet to make sure you can be trusted not to cut two eyeholes in it and go round spooking people.

[316] A world just like our own but 10% brighter.

[317] A world just like our own, but the sun rises, starts to set, comes back up again, splits in two, does a dance with itself, regroups and then sneaks up behind us before finally going down.

[318] A world just like our own but Blockbuster became a very successful streaming service.

[319] A world just like our own, but when Spielberg adapted Jaws (1975) from the book he took the shark out and replaced it with limpet with a very big mouth.

[320] A world just like our own, but cheese is made very small so you don't have to grate it, you just have to buy a lot of it.

[321] A world just like our own but when you fold clothes you fold them really tiny.

[322] A world just like our own but they've used origami in a lot of building projects and it's just started to dawn on them that it's not structurally stable.

[323] A world just like our own, but EDM DJs use echolocation to move around.

[324] A world just like our own, but Hammertime was extended to a whole Hammer-era and in his despotic autocratic regime no one is ever allowed to touch anything.

[325] A world just like our own, but double yellow lines are painted on top of each other rather than side bt side. so it's very hard to tell they're not single yellow lines.

[326] A world just like our own, but Fiona Apple is an actual apple, which makes her forward-thinking yet melodic pop music all the more impressive.

[327] A world just like our own but TLC wrote a song called "Do Go Chasing Waterfalls" because waterfalls had stolen their car and they wanted it back.

[328] A world just like our own but hamsters are a lot bigger and cats are a lot smaller and who's got the upper hand now, Miss Tiddles?

[329] A world just like our own but every fireworks day they burn a model of a fire on the bonfire and no one knows if it's ironic or something else.

[330] A world just like our own but Joseph-Ignace Guillotin invented the sandwich and not the guillotine and so a sandwich is called a guillotine and I don't know about you but that sounds weird to me.

[331] A world just like our own but C.S. Lewis wrote a whole series of different childrens books about different religions but he always used lions in the analogies and it got a bit confusing.

[332] A world just like our own but when you get a Rubix cube people don't mix it up because why would you when it's perfect?

[333] A world just like our own but Superman landed in New York not the midwest so he was raised with New York values which basically means he shouts "Hey, I'm flyin' here!!" at planes crossing his path.

[334] A world just like our own but the lengths of spaghetti varies massively due to various schisms in the Italian culinary community.

[335] A world just like our own but Easter is called Yeaster and it's a celebration of yeast. And you can make "he is risen, he is truly risen!" jokes but no one will get them because Yeaster has only ever been about yeast & they won't know what you're referencing.

[336] A world just like our own but you're only allowed to buy mugs saying e.g. "World's Best Dad" if you have paperwork backing it up.

[337] A world just like our own but there are no magicians anymore because people got so cross at them tricking people all the time that they chased them out of town and set up a sanctuary for the doves.

[338] A world just like our own but people find ventriloquism moving, not funny. They watch it like the opera and think it's a reflection on the loneliness at the heart of the human condition.

[339] A world just like our own but the Dark Lord Ganondorf has only screwed it up for everyone.

[340] A world just like our own but everyone's noticed that Mickey Mouse is boring.

[341] A world just like our own but soap is even slipperier so taking a shower is a real palaver.

[342] A world just like our own but sometimes you'll peel a banana skin and there'll be a cooked pork sausage in there.

[343] A world just like our own but trees tell you their age loudly as a defence mechanism so you won't cut them down.

[344] A world just like our own but "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter" is called "I Know It's Not Butter But It's What We Have."

[345] A world just like our own but instead of getting haircuts people get head enlargements to keep everything in proportion.

[346] A world just like our own but the Eurostar is called the Urostar and it travels under the channel from Dover to Uranus, utilising a subterranean wormhole situated just off Jersey. But the folk who make the return journey, they come back strange.

[347] A world just like our own but letters without sturdy bases fall over. So W, R, A, H, and M, for e.g., are fine, but there's no keeping T, I, V, and Y, for e.g., up. Unless you wedge them between the stable ones or use a fine thread to dangle them from the top of the page.

[348] A world just like our own but there are only 4 crimes, and of them is "enjoying playing golf." You can play it, but it is illegal to enjoy it. The other three crimes are secret so you only find out when you're arrested.

[349] A world just like our own, but the secret lizard overlords invested heavily in Betamax and lost everything, so humans run it all now.

[350] A world just like our own, but 3D movies are movies with three dicks in them.

[351] A world just like our own, but pixels are enormous.

[352] A world just like our own but The Beatles were nicknamed the Rubbish Five because there were only four of them.

[353] A world just like our own but you can't eat soup without permission from the queen.

[354] A world just like our own, everyone is just handing jars to other people to see if they can get the lids off all of the time, over and over, person to person.

[355] A world just like our own, but tweezers are far too big and clumsy.

[356] A world just like our own but no one's ever seen a spider, because they travel on the backs of people's heads.

[357] A world just like our own but the world's smallest violin died and there's nothing to play to sum up the level of sad that is.

[358] A world just like our own but the hats in Christmas crackers are big, sturdy things that a cowboy could be proud of! And as such the crackers themselves are cumbersome and don't fit on the table.

[359] A world just like our own but there's a disco ball in every prison cell and they can press a button once a day to have five minutes of a tiny spotlight shining at the disco ball and the disco ball silently revolving. There are several newspapers furious about this luxury.

[360] A world just like our own but they've cloned Cher and young Cher will not defer to old Cher and it's really putting people off young Cher (but old Cher's not doing her self any favours with her bad language.)

[361] A world just like our own but pirates don't mark the place where they've left treasure with an X they mark it with a sign saying "This is where the treasure is" and ppirates are always getting their treasure nicked, but what goes around comes around I guess.

[362] A world just like our own but a play through of the boardgame Cluedo (Clue in the USA) begins with all the other players murdering the oldest person at the table.

[363] A world just like our own but on your birthday you don't blow the candles out you crush them with your hands.

[364] A world just like our own but tennis is played with an imaginary ball and the umpire has to pretend.

[365] A world just like our own but there's no word for "ankle." You simply talk about it as the bottom of the leg or the top of the foot.

[366] A world just like our own, but there's a fifth season called "Frecken" where there is no temperature at all and a blasting dry wind and the sky fills with clouds that look like your father.

[367] A world just like our own but George Formby had his ukelele confiscated by the authorities because of his filth.

[368] A world just like our own, but triangles are the loudest instrument in the orchestra (because the other instruments are very very quiet so as not to disturb the audience).

[369] A world just like our own, but Cats (2019) didn't use humans in mo-cap suits, it used bears.

[370] A world just like our own but there are four other chess pieces: Knave (can move two spaces diagonally), Melancholic (floods the boards with tears (water)), Wizard (disappears), and Statue (can't move).

[371] A world just like our own, but bricks are generally bigger, which means fewer bricks are needed per building and, presumably, building the building is quicker.

[372] A world just like our own, but bricks are much bigger, which means only one brick is needed per building and, surely, building the building takes no times at all.

[373] A world just like our own, but the most popular website is "Rate-My-Crate," a website where people upload pictures of crates they've built and other people mark them oout of ten.

[374] A world just like our own but if someone hides an egg in your sock you've got to cut your ear off for charity.

[375] A world just like our own but no one pretends parsnips are anything other than big pale carrots.

[376] A world just like our own but paella costs extra if you want rice.

[377] A world just like our own but the classic British cuisine is "Fishes and Chip."

[378] A world just like our own but Mount Rushmore also has Ray Romano's face carved into it. It was done as part of the publicity campaign for the first season of his sitcom.

[379] A world just like our own, but Justin Timberlake's single Cry Me A River (2002) was taken to heart by his young fans and resulted in the creation of a new river from tears alone. That river is called the River Thup, and it's in the Peak District. Justin has yet to visit.

[380] A world just like our own but you have to have written permission from a medical practitioner before you orgasm. Each time.

[381] A world just like our own, but babies have moustaches. All babies. Even if they don't end up having moustaches when they're older.

[382] A world just like our own, but "gubernatorial" isn't a word. It doesn't exist. When it would be used people just say "the thing we don't have word for."

[383] A world just like our own but everyone's nose are the other way up - so rain is more of a problem, and even going in the shower needs forward planning.

[384] A world just like our own but Batman's archenemy is a rolled up newspaper aimed with stealth and precision.

[385] A world just like our own, but M&Ms are called M or Ms, because you don't know whether you're getting an M or an M, but you're definitely not getting both.

[386] A world just like our own, but one of the chocolates in the Revels lineup is flavoured exactly like spaniel meat. And, although it doesn't contain spaniel meat, someone from the product design team would definitely have had to taste spaniel meat to get the flavour so close.

[387] A world just like our own but puppets have rights.

[388] A world just like our own, but crosswords have no clues, no numbers, and no right answers; they're just beautiful empty boxes of possibility.

[389] A world just like our own but you're meant to thank your turd before you flush it.

[390] A world just like our own but Fleetwood Mac were just a group of friends who watched movies together.

[391] A world just like our own, but when you turn the handle on a jack-in-the-box the jack doesn't pop out the jack just says "please stop doing that."

[392] A world just like our own but winking means "I am dying please alert the authorities."

[393] A world just like our our own but everyone has a cupboard in their back full of different expressions, just like Mr Potatohead has.

[394] A world just like our own but Gary Larson wrote a novel instead.

[395] A world just like our own, but feet are optional.

[396] A world just like our own but there are twelve more varieties of pasta shapes including: long and very wide, short and very thin, large intestine, small intestine, spiky ball, sexy mouse, toenail, clawhammer and ear.

[397] A world just like our own but everything in the world is in alphabetical order, starting at the Greenwich Meridian and moving East. So all the aardvarks are in the East side of Greenwich, and all the zebras in the West. To give just two examples.

[398] A world just like our own, but buildings are doll house scale and people are not. A house with french windows is very desirable because you can at least get your foot in.

[399] A world just like our own, but Petula Clarke has an 'e' at the end of her surname.

[400] A world just like our own, but brocolli has tiny squirrels living in it like it was a little tree.

[401] A world just like our own but heaven isn't a half-pipe.

[402] A world just like our own, but müller corners don't have fruit compote or crunchy chocolate stuff in the corner bit, they just have more of exactly the same yoghurt as in the main bit.

[403 A world just like our own but, alongside their crunch and fruit corner range, müller have a cyanide range for spies, so if they know they're going to be caught they can tip the cyanide from the corner into the main bit and take their secrets to the grave.

[404] A world just like our own but error not found.

[405] A world just like our own, but the ghosts of trees haunt wooden furniture.

[406] A world just like our own but when you do tallies you put five lines vertically before you put one line diagonally across them.

[407] A world just like our own, but "sorry" is in fact a very soft word.

[408] A world just like our own, but Cry Me a River (1953) is called Wee Me a River" and the lyrics are "Now you say you're lonely, you wee the long night through -
well, you can wee me a river, wee me a river, I weed a river over you." It was made famous by Julie London.

[409] A world just like our own but Ant and Dec made their names hosting BDSM:TV Live.

[410] A world just like our own but a famous variety act involves a woman throwing a magician at a knife.

[411] A world just like our own but you wouldn't have a cup and saucer, you'd have a cup and saucer and saucer to be extra protected against spillages. In fact, it's just a ruse by big saucer to make more money.

[412] A world just like our own but sporks are not hybrids of spoons and forks, they're hybrids of spoons and hawks (and the original spelling "spawks" has been bowdlerised).

[413] A world just like our own but the most celebrated mountain is the smallest one, because it's so small but it defied the odds and became a mountain. It is four feet high - much smaller than some hills.

[414] A world just like our own, but gravy has grit in it. It really does make it more unpleasant, but you try talking people out of their traditions.

[415] A world just like our own, but visiting the Opera once a week is mandatory.

[416] A world just like our own, but they don't wrap gifts in paper they wrap it in ham (or turkey ham, or smoked salmon).

[417] A world just like our own but when the apple fell on Isaac Newton's head he was radicalised against trees and committed his life to cutting them all down.

[418] A world just like our own but Isaac Newton told everyone to call him 'Saac, and took to wearing his wig sideways so he would look cool. This has led to everyone taking his laws a lot less seriously.

[419] A world just like our own but the Samaritans has a militant division which goes around blowing up bridges.

[420] A world just like our own but the love interests in Jane Austens novels were all ducks (different types), and people thought it was some sort of arch-satire to begin with, but over time they started to worry about her.

[421] A world just like our own but countries have first names too - e.g. Elizabeth France, Bobby Germany, Linda Mexico, Pavel Wales, Sujit Canada, Paul Italy, Erica Britain.

[422] A world just like our own but you always wake up screaming.

[423] A world just like our own but the floors in most living rooms are actually lava.

[424] A world just like our own but there are no cooking knives so you just have to rip all the ingredients up.

[425] A world just like our own but if you touch your thighs, you die.

[426] A world just like our own, but Bananarama's lyrics were a lot more banana related, as any right-thinking person would expect.

[427] A world just like our own but Adam and Eve lawyered up and got to stay in the Garden.

[428] A world just like our own but Allen Ginsberg's famous poem was called Trowel! and it was about Trowels. It begins "I saw the best the best minds of my generations destroyed by trowels, starving hysterical naked."

[429] A world just like our own, but the meek have already inherited it. They have very long meetings about how they should run it, but they never really even start because everyone's too scared to go first.

[430] A world just like our own but DJ's aren't very respected. Whenever they look particularly cocky people shout "it's just choosing!" from the dance floor.

[431] A world just like our own but you can tell how many burglaries a burglar has down by counting the number of stripes on their top.

[432] A world just like our own, but mermaids exist. The type of fish they half-are is sardine, but their human half is average size for a human. The taper is really alarming.

[433] A world just like our own but breaststroke is a swimming stroke mainly using the breasts. Ironically, the breasts move much like the arms do in front crawl.

[434] A world just like our own but Alanis Morrisette's famous song was called "Isn't it ergonomic?" The song was basically a list of things which are designed ergonomically. "It's like a cha-a-air which supports the lower back" etc. There's been criticism because (1/2)

some of the things described aren't actually ergonomic - like when she sings "It's a static computer monitor at an uncomfortable angle for the neck." (2/2)

[435] A world just like our own, but you've got to do half an hour's community service for every opinion you express. A lot of people think that's stupid, but they don't mention it very often.

[436] A world just like our own but the phrase isn't "we'll agree to disagree" it's "we'll embark to disembark" and people say it just before getting on a boat.

[437] A world just like our own but Simon and Garfunkel were called Simon and Garfunkel and Invisible Dave, but it's likely Invisible Dave was made up.

[438] A world just like our own Banksy had a hit taken out on him by some bricklayers because they were sick of him spoiling their beautiful work.

[439] A world just like our own but no one ever says goodbye they just jump out the window mid-conversation.

[440] A world just like our own but Chesney Hawkes was a bit more modest. His big hit was called “I Am One of About A Dozen or So.”

[441] A world just like our own but on Mothers’ Day everyone dresses like their Mother, on Fathers’ Day everyone dressed like their Father and on Thursday everyone dresses like Thor.

[442] A world just like our own but there’s a really successful Podcast called Midas Wrote A Porno. King Midas’s son finds out his dad wrote a porno and tries to read it with two friends but can’t really because it’s turned to gold.

[443] A world just like our own ,but parsley is often the main ingredient in a dish, e.g. parsely pie or parsley steak or parsley lasagne. The pie is filled with a dense wodge parsley, the steak is solid parsley & the parsley lasagne is parsley mince layered between pasta sheets.

[444] A world just like our own, but when Robbie Williams left Take That he took the piano with him and that left Gary stumped.

[445] A world just like our own but you have to walk on tiptoes or they'll string you up!

[446] A world just like our own but whenever a DJ drops the beat he has to stop the music and turn the lights on so he can find it and pick it up again.

[447] A world just like our own, but flight socks gift you the power of flight (although not much control over which direction you go in or at what speed).

[448] A world just like our own but people generally do their own dental procedures, following guidance from youtube tutorials or the book Self-Dentistry for Dummies depending on age.

[449] A world just like our own but when an apple is ripe there's a big popping sound, and it's fired from the branch far into the distance. This means the phrase "the apple never falls far from the tree" is very innaccurate- and yet they still say it.

[450] A world just like our own but Alcoholics Anonymous and the Automobile Association went into business together selling batteries.

[451] A world just like our own but one of the flavours in Neapolitan Ice Cream is Gas. This was a safety initiative to help young children get used to what gas tastes and smells like, so they could identify it if there was a leak.

[452] A world just like our own but snakes don't get around by slithering, they get around by rolling.

[453] A world just like our own, but it isn't unusual for parents to give several of their children the same name, so they can remember it more easily.

[454] A world just like our own, but people don't use carrots for snowmen's noses, they use real human noses taken from the morgue.

[455] A world just like our own but facepainting is when you dip your face in paint and paint something with it.

[456] A world just like our own but hats are for *everything*, not just heads.

[457] A world just like our own but D&D stands for Duncans and Dragons, and Duncan Goodhew and Duncan Bannatyne and other famous Duncans always turn up in a tavern or something.

[458] A world just like our own but there are a lot more quests.

[459] A world just like our own but Mozart wrote several works for the kazoo.

[460] A world just like our own, but MC Escher packed it all in when he realised he'd been drawing stuff wrong for years.

[461] A world just like our own but watches are worn on the neck, not the wrist. People carry a mirror on their wrist, which they use to get a look at the watch on their neck. They then mentally invert the image, and figure out the time.

[462] A world just like our own but if you catch the bouquet at a wedding it means you are married to the newlyweds.

[463] A world just like our own but the names of the members of ABBA where Abba, Babba, Bababba, and Ababba.

[464] A world just like our own, but you can get very thick paper for building muscle while you do origami.

[465] A world just like our own but if you say the words "This one please" in a dream, that dream world becomes your permanent reality.

[466] A world just like our own but hordes of golfers keep smashing up Crazy Golf courses because they think they're being made fun of.

[467] A world just like our own but birds have much bigger cloacas and are much better aims.

[468] A world just like our own, but instead of coming at the end of a story, morals are about a fifth of the way in - so you can decide whether to bother reading the rest of it or not.

[469] A world just like our own, but Picasso packed it all in when he realised he'd been painting stuff wrong for years.

[470] A world just like our own, but blimey it's muggy.

[471] A world just like our own, but they carve presidents to lok like mountains, not the other way around.

[472] A world just like our own, but Table Football is the main kind of football. It's hard on the legs though, kicking that table around a pitch.

[473] A world just like our own, but the Chippendales just carved furniture to crowds of whooping women.

[474] A world just like our own but Burger King's signature burger is called "The Whippet" although it is, in fact, made of chihuahua meat.

[475] A world just like our own but Sex and the City (1998 - 2004) is about the sexual adventures of NYC. It dated Chicago and Colchester before finally settling down in a throuple with Gloucestershire (a whole county!). NYC refused to ever work with Sarah Jessica Parker again.

[476] A world just like our own but ants carry mirrors to burn cruel children with magnifying glasses.

[477] A world just like our own but, after the alphabet was part privatised, you have to pay Richard Branson to be allowed to use the letters M, V, T, B and O.

[478] A world just like our own but trees have human hands, not leaves. They all fall off in autumn. They make a lovely crunching sound when you walk through them.

[479] A world just like our own but whenever Pinocchio lied his nose poked him in the eye.

[480] A world just like our own but there's dads bloody everywhere.

[481] A world just like our own, but BP have started selling oil as a fitness drink.

[482] A world just like our own but trained mice run the government - but the monarchy are cats!!!

[483] A world just like our own, but there's a lottery and if you win it you have to donate your heart to a pig.

[484] A world just like our own but you are not allowed to go to the toilet without your primary teacher's permission, for your whole entire life. You better hope they give you contact details. And once they die, unless you find a good medium, you're screwed.

[485] A world just like our own but Jamie Oliver was never hired by Channel Four so goes door to door trying to sell cookery tips.

[486] A world just like our own but parsley, not hair, grows in noses.

[487] A world just like our own but they haven't invented hammers, but all the problems *are* nails.

[488] A world just like our own but jelly babies look much more like actual babies and sales are very low.

[489] A world just like our own but Mr Bean is worshipped as a god. Rowan Atkinson has to stay in character all the time out of fear his acolytes will turn on him. He daren't say anything, though, because that would be a dead giveaway.

[490] A world just like our own but Jennifer Saunders formed a comic partnership with the entire population of France, and had a very successful run on the BBC as "The French and Saunders", although no one made much money because it was split so many ways.

[491] A world just like our own but you just never know when a waiter from a trattoria will appear and grind pepper over whatever it is your doing - be that putting together a spreadsheet, making a cake, masturbating, whatever. And they're breaking no laws.

[492] A world just like our own but everything's a lot stickier and people have just had to adjust.

[493] A world just like our own but butterflies have been weaponised by super powers to cause hurricanes in other parts of the world.

[494] A world just like our own but Harold Pinter wrote children's books about ducks. They're about half quacking, half pauses.

[495] A world just like our own but Agatha Christie just told you what sodding happened at the start.

[496] A world just like our own, but the Queen begins each speech with an apology.

[497] A world just like our own but Richard III is still alive, and his hump has just kept growing and growing and it's taller than the Shard, so there's a growing public affection for him (he's learnt to play it for laughs).

[498] A world just like our own but unicorns exist, and they're suing Paperchase for unauthorised use of their image.

[499] A world just like our own but Easter Eggs are made of communion wafers and they come with some holy water in a small (non-recyclable) plastic bag.

[500] A world just like our own but there are 8 deadly sins, and the extra one is beein' coooool.

[501] A world just like our own but there's a 20 percent chance your feet will explode on any given day.

[502] A world just like our own but sharks have Deliveroo and they use it to order humans to be killed and brought to them. Reasonably often, the orders are lost en route, but the humans remain dead.

[503] A world just like our own but they've built bridges, not walls. But they're built so many bridges that you can't really move for bridges and it's easy to get stuck between bridges.

[504] A world just like our own, but ghosts keep themselves to themselves.

[505] A world just like our own, but whenever you buy anything - food or otherwise - it comes with a sprig of parsley on it.

[506] A world just like our own but Tamagotchis have evolved and they're in charge now.

[507] A world just like our own but Eminem named himself after a different sort of chocolate and so he's called "Dark Cooking Chocolate 70% Cocoa."

[508] A world just like our own but the Olympics logo has 7 rings, one for each Deadly Sin.

[509] A world just like our own but kangaroos only jump when no one's looking.

[510] A world just like our own but the Pharaohs weren't so in to triangles, so they were buried generally under massive sculptures of what they wanted people to think their genitals looked like.

[511] A world just like our own but UB40 had a hit with "Red White Wine," a song about Rosé.

[512] A world just like our own but they've invented Time Travel. Unfortunately, the time machines only fit things smaller than a fist, so people kept sending hamsters through time to, really, no end.

[513] A world just like our own but pictures never really took off because people were like "I'll just remember it."

[514] A world just like our own but candlelight isn't seen as romantic, it's seen as funny. People eat dinner by candlelight and laugh their bleeding heads off throughout.

[515] A world just like our own, but the cutlery situation differs. Chopsticks in SE Asia, knives & forks in Europe, & in the USA they use vacuum cleaners. You put the tube on the food, turn it on, so it's held on the end, then transfer to your mouth. Does not work well for soup.

[516] A world just like our own but in Lady and the Tramp the pasta they're eating is fusilli. Fusilli is much shorter than spaghetti, so they get to the good stuff much quicker. Also it's twirly, so they spin round as they do it.

[517] A world just like our own but birds have escalators so they don't need to fly nearly so much.

[518] A world just like our own but when your favourite band or musician suddenly gets mainstream success you feel happy about it, not aggrieved.

[519] A world just like our own but planes flap their wings.

[520] A world just like our own, but dachshunds count as snakes for tax purposes. Oh also, pets are taxed. You need to give the government 18% of your pet a year.

[521] A world just like our own but Liza Minnelli is forty foot high. Whole neighbourhoods are lost when she dances, so people are very careful to close their windows if they're playing a song they think she might like.

[522] A world just like our own but Alan Bennett's BBC Talking Heads monologues all starred David Byrne in a variety of different wigs.

[523] A world just like our own but everyone has to donate their first born to Findus.

[524] A world just like our own but mountain climbers whisper "I love you I love hugging you I love you so much" all the way up the cliff face.

[525] A world just like our own but the the fourth member of the girlband All Saints was St Francis of Asissi.

[526] A world just like our own but babies start massive and then dry up over time like raisins to reach adult size (1/7) the original baby size.

[527] A world just like our own but roundabouts have no rules after 8pm.

[528] A world just like our own but it is against the law to make a cake look like anything other than a cake.

[529] A world just like our own but Hans Christian Andersen's famous story was called the The Massive Mermaid and it was about an absolutely huge mermaid who dreamed of being an absolutely huge human and ended up crushing Denmark.

[530] A world just like our own but there's not "Christmas Trees" there's "Christmas Dads". Every year on Dec 1st you tie your dad up with tinsel & fairy lights in the living room, and hang decorations on him. Then, on the 6th of January, you put him outside for collection.

[531] A world just like our own but the very rudest word you can say is "Nork."

[532] A world just like our own but the rainbow is polka dot.

[533] A world just like our own but volcanoes spurt out tiny volcanoes.

[534] A world just like our own but police officers always apologise just before they arrest you and then they arrest you and then they say "I take it back."

[535] A world just like our own but the film Beethoven (1992) is about a family who adopt a composer - against dad's wishes - and all the trouble that follows!! By the end of the film even dad's fallen in love with the big oaf! In Beethoven's 2nd (1993) they get him some clothes.

[536] A world just like our own but Kellog's Cereal Boxes all have "Don't Masturbate!" written in big letters on the back, in a speech bubble coming from the mouth of whatever mascot the cereal has.

(It's a bit rich when Coco the monkey says it because you know he's at it all the time.)

[537] A world just like our own, but one of the stages of grief, as outlined by Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, is growing a horn.

[538] A world just like our own, but you don't put ice in drinks to cool them down, you just put up with it.

[539] A world just like our own but Take That's full name was Take That Damn Filthy Dog Outside And Come Here And Kiss Me But Before Kissing Me Wash Those Hands That Have Been Touching That Dog and they were much more succesful and Robbie never left.

[540] A world just like our own but the weather reports after the news are much swearier and the presenters call the weather all sorts of names.

[541] A world just like our own but there’s three Tuesdays each week.

[542] A world just like our own but gravy has gravel in it, and that’s where the name came from.

[543] A world just like our own but when they launch rockets they don't do a countdown, it's a surprise.

[544] A world just like our own but grains of salt are massive. About 0.4 cubic metres. There's obviously no sprinkling them on food, so you put them next to you and lick them while you're eating.

[545] A world just like our own but there's no picture hooks, you have to just hold pictures up on the wall with your hands.

[546] A world just like our own but buy-to-let has extended to feet. The landlords buy your feet and then rent them to you (or a higher bidder).

[547] A world just like our own but Monopoly is fun.

[548] A world just like our own but you don't use yeast to make bread rise you blow into the dough with several straws throughout the baking process.

[549] A world just like our own but most families have a snake pit.

[550] A world just like our own, but taking their cue from Pinnochio, everyone has an insect they consult on moral decisions. A lot of dark shit goes down.

[551] A world just like our own, but when photography was invented, painters formed vigilante mobs and went round smashing up camera equipment and intimidating photographers. It worked. To this day, if you want a picture of something you have to commission an artist to paint it.

[552] A world just like our own but in the sermon on the mount Jesus told the meek they'd get a different planet, actually, because this one was already done for.

[553] A world just like our own but Madonna released a song called "Would you like a virgin?" and Meatloaf released a song called "Would you like a bat out of hell?" and they were both a lot less successful.

[554] A world just like our own but all of Eastenders is filmed from the same high angle as the title sequence.

[555] A world just like our own but Samuel Beckett went into designing Point and Click PC games. In his most successful game, you'd play a woman trapped up to her waist in soil, and you'd click on things to pick up and she (voiced by Felicity Kendall) would say "I can't reach."

[556] A world just like our own but werewolves turn into an amount of wolf proportional to the moon that night. So on a half moon they become half wolf, on a quarter moon they become a quarter wolf etc.

[557] A world just like our own but the 10 Commandments are more specific e.g. "Thou Shalt Not Kill Anyone Whose Name Begins With a 'B,'" & "Thou Shalt Not Steal Anything Too Extravagant," & "Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbour's Wife Unless All Parties Are Enthusiastic About It."

[558] A world just like our own but time moves sideways. We can't comprehend that, but there we are.

[559] A world just like our own, but as police officers move up rank, they accrue helmets. They have to wear them all at the same time. This means the more senior the police officer, the more unstable they are.

[560] A world just like our own, but traffic lights are advisory.

[561] A world just like our own but Jaws (1975) was about an animatronic shark, not a real one. The animatronic shark was played by a real shark. It ate three crew members, but won Best Actress at that year's academy awards.

[562] A world just like our own but there's a breed of horse which has one veeeeeery long leg, much longer than the other three. It's very unwieldy.

[563] A world just like our own but dominoes are much sturdier and really don't fall easily.

[564] A world just like our own but you get butter straight from the udder - it squeezes out in a block. It's not wrapped, but other than that it's ready to go. No one who was seen this procedure ever eats butter again.

[565] A world just like our own but the X-man Wolverine doesn't have his whole healing business or the big metal claws. He just has short legs comparatively to his body like wolverines do, and that's why they named him Wolverine.

[566] A world just like our own but whenever you order pitted olives the server always says "have you noticed they look like they have little bumholes?" and then you do notice, and then you have to eat them.

[567] A world just like our own but you've got to get the password right to be able to leave the maternity ward.

[568] A world just like our own but whenever you grind coffee a ghost screams in the other room. You stop grinding the coffee, because you thought you heard something. Nothing. You grind again, the ghost screams. If only the grinder weren't so loud. You stop to listen. Nothing.

[569] A world just like our own but when you win a race you don't run through a ribbon you run through cheesewire. In a lot of ways it makes coming first a lot less attractive.

[570] A world just like our own but the Free Gifts at the bottom of cereal boxes are usually very, very sharp.

[571] A world just like our own but spiders *know* how scary you find just the thought of them.

[572] A world just like our own but every street has a bear and everyone on the street has to take turns looking after it. You get a bag of bear food, and a fake cave, but other than that you're on your own.

[573] A world just like our own but the coca-cola logo isn't nearly so swirly. It looks, to be honest, a lot more professional.

[574] A world just like our own but Lego bricks are the same size as normal bricks and it's really very hard to know where to store it.

[575] A world just like our own but Morrissey didn't go solo. When he left The Smiths he got a cloning machine, and formed a band with three other Morrisseys. They'd have furious arguments on stage when somehow they'd manage to agree furiously with each other. (1/2)

God, the things they agreed about. Then they finally split up and all started new bands with other Morrisseys. There's Morrisseys bloody everywhere. You can't move for Morrisseys! And they all claim benefits! They'll bankrupt this country!! They should pay their fair share! (2/2)

[576] A world just like our own but the phrase "burning the candle at both ends" doen't mean you're exhausting yourself by doing too many things and not getting enough sleep, it means you're wasteful and you've got the time to just stand their holding a candle by its middle.

[577] A world just like our own but Frankenstein is the name of the monster and pedants feel a real lack of something but don't know what.

[578] A world just like our own but they wrap burritos a lot worse, so generally whoever makes it has to stand with their finger on top of it holding it together while you eat it.

[579] A world just like our own but Jack-in-the-Boxes work differently. You turn the handle and the music plays and then, at a surprising moment, the phone rings and you get some terrible unexpected news.

[580] A world just like our own but androids live among us and they're always telling you about their dreams and it's bloody boring.

[581] A world just like our own but "Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit" by Jeannette Winterson was the first part of a trilogy, the other two books being called "Or Are They?" and "Nope."

[582] A world just like our own but the picture of the queen on the banknotes has an expression which says "I'm really going to knock my speech out of the park next Christmas."

[583] A world just like our own but the Superbowl Halftime show isn't performed by a singer or a band, it's performed by the football players, and it's a normally a five act play about the "Origins of Football," or "Why Bullying is Bad," or "Dogs."

[584] A world just like our own but dresses all have pockets, though unfortunately there's a scorpion in each one.

[585] A world just like our own but Sir Mixalot's most famous song began "I've done three murders and I cannot lie" and he was stripped of his knighthood for it.

[586] A world just like our own but the "Layer" in "Layer Cake" refers to the cake's emtionally complexity, not the cake's physical layers.

[587] A world just like our own but you don't dip the biscuit in the tea, you ladle the tea onto the biscuit. Then use a knife and fork.

[588] A world just like our own but soup is served through flumes - usually scale models of real life waterparks. The croutons wear bathing suits so you have to pick them out of your mouth before you swallow.

[589] A world just like our own but Mark's Gospels are written in the first person, from Jesus's point of view.

[590] A world just like our own but The Backstreet Boys were asked a lot more questions about backstreets. Like "Are we talking country lanes, or alleyways?" and "What's wrong with the main thoroughfares? Do you have something to hide?"

[591] A world just like our own but Heads of State generally still have jesters.

[592] A world just like our own but Garfield is *horny* for Lasagne, except on Mondays when he's released from the spell. He *hates* Mondays.

[593] A world just like our own but every solstice they rearrange the rocks of Stonehenge to look like a different celebrity.

[594] A world just like our own but Home Alone 2 (1992) concerned the court case.

[595] A world just like our own but, when they sell you sausages, butchers twist them into the shape of poodles or giraffes etc. like balloon modellers.

[596] A world just like our own but everyone sleeps in coffins to save waste.

[597] A world just like our own, but most chocolate is parsley flavoured.

[598] A world just like our own, but The Simon and Garfunkel song is called "Parsley, Parsley, Parsley and Parsley".

[599] A world just like our own but parsley is really heavy, so when you garnish food with it, it normally crushes that food.

[600] A world just like our own, but they've discovered interdimensional travel, and there's a parsley-obsessed maniac who has access to it.

[601] A world just like our own but people put little bits of parsley on their medication before taking it to make it feel fancier.

[602] A world just like our own but the Parsley Man is worshipped as the One True King and ah right he's that guy from the interdimensional travelling dystopia, isn't he?

[603] A world just like our own but there's giant crab claws snapping at you on every street, and it your own home as well. Huge, powerful things. A waking nightmare. On the upside, the parsley situation seems very normal here.

[604] A world just like our own but some snails have second shells by the seaside for the summer. The snails who always live beside the seaside don't like this.

[605] A world just like our own but whenever you put salt on your food you hear little screams and dead slugs fall out of it.

[606] A world just like our own but "French Horn" means an erection.

[607] A world just like our own but all the drawers are in upside down, so when you open them everything falls straight on the floor.

[608] A world just like our own, but Clothes Moths don't eat clothes, they wear them. Tiny little jerkins and trousers, and little dresses. Cute little hats! A muff or two! Itty bitty plimsoles! The clothes are made by worker bees in sweatshops.

[609] A world just like our own but pirates are in charge so everything is designed to be operated with hooks, not hands.

[610] A world just like our own, but libraries only loan out different kinds of traps (bear traps, mousetraps, etc.)

[611] A world just like our one but mirages are much more common, and appear in many different environments and at many different temperatures.

[612] A world just like our own, but Colchester has been proven to be a computer simulation (but no one knows how to break it to the mayor).

[613] A world just like our own but murder is allowed, so long as it takes place (1) during a sport and is (2) committed by (a) one of the players playing the sport *at that time* or (b) a businessman.

[614] A world just like our own, but the leader of each major world religion is elected by followers of another religion.

[615] A world just like our own, but when you reach the age of forty your brain is either transplanted into someone elses body, or someone else brain in transplanted into yours. Either way, it's a two-brains-one-body-situation. The excess body is composted.

[616] A world just like our one but trees have sex with each other and they don't care who's about to see.

[617] A world just like our own but the sirens used by the emergency services are a lot quieter and more polite. They go *whispered* "nee naw nee naw excuse me I'm an ambulance please nee naw oh I'd be ever so grateful if you'd let me through."

[618] A world just like our own, but whenever you get someone's name wrong there's a loud buzzer sound.

[619] A world just like our own but "Heard it Through the Grapevine" is about grapes who gossip a lot about other grapes. The lyrics are things like "Heard it on the grapevine / Jane the Grape thinks she's all that, but she's just a grape like the rest of us / Honey Honey Yeah."

[620] A world just like our own but dice go "ow" when you roll them.

[621] A world just like our own but everyone has a set of baby teeth, a set of teenage teeth, a set of twenties teeth, one set of teeth for each decade of your thirties and then after that no teeth at all until you're 70 and you get tusks.

[622] A world just like our own but there are 4 letters in the alphabet which have yet to be used in any word. And now it's been so long, it seems unlikely they will ever be.

[623] A world just like our own but yoghurt is only produced by accident.

[624] A world just like our own but everyone boycotted Star Wars (1977) because they were mad that it looked like it should rhyme but it didn't. No further movies were made. To clarify: not just movies in the Star Wars franchise. No further movies of any kind were made.

[625] A world just like our own but the only hair you grow on your head is ear hair, which grows very long. This lasts until your early thirties, when you finally start to grow hair on the top of the skull.

[626] A world just like our own, but everyone's tongues are much longer, and completely uncontrollable.

[627] A world just like our own, but each Polo mint has an abyss in the middle. Don't stare.

[628] A world just like own, but each ring donut has an abyss in the middle. Don't stare.

[629] A world just like our own, byt ivverywan spiks lyk a medyeval poot.

[630] A world just like our own, but every bagel has a cork stuck in the central hole, and you use a corkscrew to twist it out. Then you taste the bagel to check it's not corked, and then you nod "fine, thank you" and eat it. And then you tumble into the abyss in the middle.

[631] A world just like our own but when people scream it sounds like Kenneth Williams going "ooooooh!"

[632] A world just like our own but salt and pepper is all mixed up together in one shaker. If you want one but not the other, you've got to go through and pick out the grains.

[633] A world just like our own but you sliced bread was never invented, ripped bread was. The loaf is ripped apart then put together in a package in more or less a loaf shape. It was designed by a duck. In this world the phrase is "the best thing until sliced bread."

[634] A world just like our own, but monsters have started subletting the space under your bed so God knows what you'll find down there.

[635] A world just like our own, but if you don't get tongue twisters right the first time you try then you are taken into a courtyard and shot by Betty Botter and a woodchuck.

[636] A world just like our own but bookmarks are soaking wet, so you can use them to save your place in the book but if you do you'll ruin the book a bit.

[637] A world just like our own but Allen Ginsberg's famous poem was called Bowel! and it was about Bowels. It begins "I saw the best bowels of my generations destroyed by lactose, starving hysterical naked."

[638] A world just like our own but sharks have reverse scuba diving kits so they can flop up on land and take a look at stuff.

[639] A world just like our own but there's only one variety of jelly mould. There were loads of different types, but one quintessential jelly shape was chosen and everyone got rid of the rest.

[640] A world just like our own but Allen Ginsberg's famous poem was called Vowel! and it was about Vowels. It begins "I a e e oe o eeaio eoe ae, ai eia ae."

[641] A world just like our own but Roget's Thesaurus only give you two synonyms for each word, because "if you need more than that," says Roget "you're banging on about the same subject too much."

[642] A world just like our own but the musical Godspell (1971) was called SpellGod and had 17 different songs, which each only had the lyrics "G-O-D" over and over.

[643] A world just like our own, but countercultural, pro-peace rock musical Hair (1967) really, truly changed the world, leading to a nude scene in every musical or play with music (including Shrek (2008)) and six more wars than had it never been performed.

[644] A world just like our own but Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton (2013) was not about a founding father of the USA, but disgraced ex-Tory MP and current leader of Welsh UKIP Neil Hamilton. It was commercially a success, but if its aim was to rehabilitate its subject, it failed.

[645] A world just like our own, but people *do* just burst into song in the street. Unfortunately, these songs are not written by professional composers, and are often sung over other songs sung by other people nearby. It's pretty unbearable.

[646] A world just like our own but during the premiere of Starlight Express (1984), the ghost of Richard Trevithick, architect of the first full scale steam locomotive, appeared 20 ft above the stalls of the Apollo Victoria Theatre & bellowed "Yes! Yes! This is why I did it!"

[647] A world just like our own but the original production of Blood Brothers (1983) starred Paul and Barry Chuckle in the title roles.

[648] A world just like our own but The Beano Club was disbanded in 1994 after it was discovered to be a cover for a cocaine trafficking operation.

[649] A world just like our own but the government record all your thoughts and then set them to catchy melodies and play them to you friends.

[650] A world just like our own but humans have robot servants, and they have alien servants, and they have ghost servants, and they have mice servants, and they have to do everything themselves.

[651] A world just like our own, but draftspeople aren't allowed in criminal trials, so instead of Courtroom Artists they have Courtroom Composers, who arrange music to try and get the feel of the trial across. This is then played on the news.

[652] A world just like our own but violinists' bows are very, very long, so they keep on poking other members of the orchestra in the eye.

[653] A world just like our own but the word for "Temperature" is "Kevin Bacon," so "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" means "Six Degrees of Temperature," and doesn't specificy whether it's celsius, fahrenheit, or kelvin etc.

[654] A world just like our own but the phrase is "sorry to blow my own trumpet up" and you use it when you wish you hadn't exploded your trumpet.

[655] A world just like our own but when you strike a match, the end of the match opposite to the end you just struck (i.e. the end of the match in your hand) is the end with catches fire.

[656] A world just like our own but everything seems to be in 2D unless you where 3D glasses which means you bump into stuff all the time.

[657] A world just like our own but Nintendo after introducing a nemesis for Mario called Wario, and then rehabilitating Wario and turning him into an anti-hero, they came up with a new villain for Wario, who was the reverse of Wario, so was called Mario, but wasn't *the* Mario.

[658] A world just like our own but sequins come in matt grey for business occasions.

[659] A world just like our own but eggs are sold with "DON'T THINK ABOUT WHERE I'VE BEEN" written in capital letters on the shells.

[660] A world just like our own but instant coffee becomes coffee actually instantly. This means that by the time you've bought it it's coffee, and has been coffee for a while, and it's gone cold from sitting on the shelves for so long.

[661] A world just like our own but all the squares on a chessboard are the same colour, so you just have to sort of guess where they are.

[662] A world just like our own but *every* joke begins "Knock Knock." E.g,

A: Knock Knock
B: Who's there?
A: A person with a joke.
B: What's the joke?
A: What's ET short for?
B: I don't know
A: Because he has tiny little legs.
B: Ha ha.

[663] A world just like our own but architects make their buildings bigger than the actual buildings by 1:2. Architect's offices are massive.

[664] A world just like our own but in Friends (1994 - 2004) the character of Joey was a ghost. He was haunting Ross, who had murdered him five years previously. This all came to a head in The One Where Ross's Guilty Demeanour is Explained.

[665] A world just like our own, but a chocolate Bounty is a whole, unopened coconut coated in a thin layer of chocolate.

[666] A world just like our own, but letterboxes are at the top of the door so if there's anything fragile it will probably break with the fall.

[667] A world just like our own but the world "webinar" is much more widely used

[668] A world just like our own but must things are held up with velcro (shelves, doors, bridges) so stuff falls apart in really dangerous ways all the time.

[669] A world just like our own but a Grapefruit is called "Large Surprising Satsuma."

[670] A world just like our own, but there are armed goats on every street.

[671] A world just like our own, it's polite to leave the dinner table when anyone tells an anecdote. You can come back when they've finished.

[672] A world just like our own but movies work like this: they just keep introducing new characters for one hour and fifty minutes and then the movie ends.

[673] A world just like our own, but the dictionary is arranged in no particular order, so you only get to find out what a particular word means if you really, really put the effort in.

[674] A world just like our own, but Nike's slogan is "I miss my Dad." The copywriter had something going on when he pitched it, but they just ended up keeping it anyway.

[675] A world just like our own, but piñatas are full of bees, and they're called what ever the Spanish for "revenge effigies" is.

[676] A world just like our own, but Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? was just Chris Tarrant asking people if they wanted to be a millionaire, and them weighing up the pros and cons.

[677] A world just like our own, but Football (soccer) is played with a really, really, really heavy ball. The players run up to the ball and kick it and then grab their kicking foot and go "ow ow ow ow ow" and the ball doesn't really move perceptibly and scorelines are low.

[678] A world just like our own, but olympic athletes are chosen by ballot, not ability.

[679] A world just like our own, but every buffet has at least one booby trap.

[680] A world just like our own, but listen to this... no come closer, listen... closer... PEOPLE ARE ALWAYS SHOUTING INTO YOUR EAR.

[681] A world just like our own but since the release of Sledgehammer in 1986 Peter Gabriel's every move has been animated in stop-motion.

[682] A world just like our own but dropping the mic is seen not as a power move but as careless.

[683] A world just like our own but there are no numbers over 8 because they "got bored."

[684] A world just like our own, but it's knife *or* fork and you can't have both.

[685] A world just like our own, but Kinder Surprises contain things which are genuinely surprising: e.g., a full scale bicycle, Zeus, ten packets of cigarettes, the key to a safety deposit box in Cincinnati, More Time, your cousin, the Turin shroud.

[686] A world just like our own but white boards are more of a magnolia.

[687] A world just like our own but Tennis is a lot less about actually hitting the ball, and a lot more about waving the racket about in fun ways.

[688] A world just like own but Cupid doesn't have arrows he has a mallet.

[689] A world just like our own but tornados have Mr Potato style eyes and mouths, which stay on one side of them like a face. They wreak havoc, but at the same time they do lift your mood a bit.

[690] A world just like our own but everyone is killed when they reach the age of thirty, then their spirit is encouraged to haunt a ventriloquist doll. This creates the image of a perfect utopian society full of only those under thirty, and regret filled vent dolls.

[691] A world just like our own but chefs find it hilarious when you send back your crème brûlée saying "this cream is burnt!!" and enjoy it iwhen you do it over and over again.

[692] A world just like our own but "x" at the end of a letter doesn't mean "kiss" it means "you are hereby cursed."

[693] A world just like our own but Jane Austen used the phrases "wet and warm as a Lancashire hotpot" and "hard and insistent as Old Mrs Humberts twice-baked sausage roll" at least once per novel.

[694] A world just like our own, but Jane Austen combined all her novels into one "MEGANOVEL" called "Emma Sanditon and the Proudly Prejudiced Sense and Persuasion of Northanger Abi's Man Sensibility in Field Park"

[695] A world just like our own, but "Wet, Wet, Wet" were three bands who all had the same name and couldn't agree who was allowed to keep it, so they teamed up, furiously, for years.

[696] A world just like our own, but ghosts don't say "boo" they remind you how many novels Martin Amis has had published.

[697] A world just like our own but in 2009 Pluto was classified as a "double-planet" to make up for its earlier demotion.

[698] A world just like our own but you're allowed to put any old shit in a lasagne.

[699] A world just like our own but Glam Rock means Rock Music made in Glamorgan.

[700] A world just like our own but Ian Fleming's famous spy is called "Stephen Bond" and the second book is called "Double-O Stephen" and no more books were commissioned and the films were never made.

[701] A world just like our own, but Cuckoo Clocks are clocks you never bought, but which somehow ended up in your house, tended to and cared for as if they were your very own clock.

[702] A world just like our own but a "peaked cap" means a cap which was at it's best earlier.

[703] A world just like our own but everything that has a shell is called a tortoise. Turtles, crabs, oysters, eggs - there all tortoises. It makes things easier, and also a lot more difficult.

[704] A world just like our own but the Barenaked Ladies are in charge of sharing out music, and they've been hoarding all the Gs for themselves.

[705] A world just like our own but The Michael Ball is a big do to which only Michaels are invited.

[706] A world just like our own, but snakes live in the pipes of pipe organs, because they fit in their so well. If you play a song on it that displeases them they come out and bite you.

[707] A world just like our own but Top Gear is a show about recreational drugs.

[708] A world just like our own but Hi-de-Hi! (1980-1988) had a film spin off where the Maplin's Holiday Camp staff got back together for "one last job" and set about pulling of a complex bank robbery. It was called "Heist-de-Heist!" and it's box office success led to 6 sequels.

[709] A world just like our own, but libraries store books with their spines to the back of the shelf so you have to kind of guess which one's the one you want.

[710] A world just like our own but swords never got handles - you had to grip the blade at the non-pointy end. It hurt like hell, and led to most battles being called off a couple of hours ahead of time. Then when bullets were invented no one came up with guns - you just (1/2)

had to throw them very hard at your opponents. This took such a lot of effort that everyone would give up on a war really quickly. (2/2)

[711] A world just like our own, but everyone's a youtuber for 15 minutes.

[712] A world just like our own, but no one ever came up with Reality Television. They cam up with Realty Television instead, which is worse.

[713] A world just like our own, but sports commentators don't say anything they just do sharp intakes of breath, and occasional say "my, my, my."

[714] A world just like our own, but if you are giving or selling a pie to anyone, it is illegal for you to tell them what filling is in the pie. Pies can only be bought blind.

[715] A world just like our own, but when people do domino rallies the dominoes are balanced on their side, not their end. This is reportedly so that any hamsters, mice or other small animals can watch without having their view obscured, but that may just be hearsay.

[716] A world just like our own, but you're only allowed to have a bathtub if you are willing to keep a Government Goose in it. The Government Goose is a goose. It honks at you angrily when you touch yourself.

[717] A world just like our own, but dinner party guests can be seated according to any binary, not just gender. So: "Male, Female, Male, Female" sure. But also "Good, Evil, Good, Evil" or "Rich, Poor, Rich, Poor" or "Sick, Well, Sick, Well." And that's in Debrett's!

[718] A world just like our own, but people do *not* like sandwiches.

[719] A world just like our own, but cats have 96 lives *but* they are very, very clumsy so they get through 'em pretty quick.

[720] A world just like our own, but Shrek took on a life of his own, and ordered a hit on Mike Myers.

[721] A world just like our own, but the big draw waterflumes aren’t scary and exciting because they’re steep, but because they are lined with sandpaper.

[722] A world just like our own but Jesus came back specifically to make a statement distancing himself from Veggietales.

[723] A world just like our own but we modelled are society on goats, so there's a lot of butting.

[724] A world just like our own but Nu-Metal is still a thing.

[725] A world just like our own, but anglers boast about how kind the fish they caught was, not how big it was. #BeKind

[726] A world just like our own but there are a lot more buffalo stampedes in major cities.

[727] A world just like our own but traffic signs all have question marks next to them which really makes you doubt yourself.

[728] A world just like our own, but you have to walk up the slide and then slide down the stairs.

[729] A world just like our own, but kids don't sit on swings. They stand facing a friend with the swing in the middle, and just absolutely whack the thing into the other ones face. Adults seem fine with this.

[730] A world just like our own but the liberal welfare reforms of the 1900s were funded entirely by one 99 year old man walking round his garden.

[731] A world just like our own but nobody’s worked out what butter does. As it stands they’re trying it out as an adhesive.

[732] A world just like our own but toenails grow 1000x as fast.

[733] A world just like our own, but Funky Town is Funky City (it has a cathedral).

[734] A world just like our own but Tom Jones fans would get together ahead of his concerts to organise who was going to throw what item of clothing, so that he would have a few functional outfits by the end of the gig and not just heaps of knickers.

[735] A world just like our own but there is a profession called "Rememberer" and they go door to door remembering things for money. Buck's Fizz, Pogs, where you put the car keys, those sorts of things.

[736] A world just like our own but the famous mnemonic related to Henry VIII helps you remember What He Had Six Of: "Taramasalata, Cream and Chive, / The thing he had six of, it was Wive!"

There's also a mnemonic to remember who that mnemonic relates to: "Who had six of the thing called Wive? / Henery Eight (when he was alive)!"

[737] A world just like our own, but Captain Kirk moved on from romancing humanoid aliens to pretty much any alien life form at all. He ended up married to a Mars Dog (like an earth dog, but purple).

[738] A world just like our own, but umbrellas are tiny and you carry loads of them. One per raindrop, is the aim.

[739] A world just like our own, but bread is sliced horizontally.

[740] A world just like our own but the ratio of water to chlorine in swimming pools is reversed.

[741] A world just like our own but cocktails don't just get umbrellas, they get all kind of weather-appropriate accoutrements. Fleeces, sun cream, goggles, wooly gloves etc.

[742] A world just like our own, but there's loads of fondue restaurants, but none of them use forks - you have to use your fingers.

[743] A world just like our own, but they have these things called "Faceshoes" which are shoes you wear round your face.

[744] A world just like our own, but TFI Friday never went off the air, it just got less and less fun and they all looked so tired by about 2013 but it just kept on going. It just kept on and on. They got some great guests on, and some fun format ideas but something (1/2)

about it was just so melancholy. So bleak. And then, one night, you (that world version) were watching, nearly crying, and you worked out why. It was the same audience as 20 years ago. They'd not been allowed to leave the building. They were cheering but their eyes (2/3)

looked so tired. They're so thin - what have they been feeding them? Babylon Zoo were on, but you kept staring at the crowd. Were some of them... dead? Propped up, Weekend at Bernie's style, on a smiling Danny Baker's shoulder? You switched the TV off, and tried to forget. (3/3)

[745] A world just like our own, but they don't throw flowers at opera singers they throw expensive electricals.

[746] A world just like our own, but when you go to the optician they don't get you to read any letters on a screen or anything, they just guess.

[747] A world just like our own but it's not just the orange which is named after its colour - all food is. This gets confusing as there are a lot of double ups. E.g, the yellow has the same name as the yellow and the yellow, not to mention the yellow.

[748] A world just like our own but clowns don't have red noses, they have blue bums.

[749] A world just like our own but Tickle Me Elmo isn't so bloody needy.

[750] A world just like our own but they've invented screws, but not screwdrivers.

[751] A world just like our own but they've invented tins, yet not tin openers.

[752] A world just like our own but they've invented locks, yet not keys.

[753] A world just like our own but they've invented whisks, yet not bowls.

[754] A world just like our own, but the main form of public transport is trebuchet.

[755] A world just like our own but camouflage gear there is too good and loads of armies have gone missing.

[756] A world just like our own but elephants are mainly trunk.

[757] A world just like our own, but Missy Elliot released a song called "Help Me Get This Freak Off I Need to Go To Bed and The Zipper is Stuck."

[758] A world just like our own, but every monday theatres sell tickets on a "Pay What You Can't" basis.

[759] A world just like our own, but you’re only allowed to put one thing in a cocktail.

[760] A world just like our own but there's no curtains you just have to close your eyes.

[761] A world just like our own but Lady Marmalade had a lot more Paddington in it.

[762] A world just like our own but P!nk wasn't sure about her name so she's called P?nk.

[763] A wORLd juSt liKE ouR Own but CASes (As iN letTEr casES) arE OF no SIGNificancE.

[764] A world just like our own but Emu operated Rod Hull.

[765] A world just like our own but rubik's cubes just have one colour so they're very relaxing actually.

[766] A world just like our own but lined paper has a lot, lot more lines on it so it’s hard to fit the words in.

[767] A world just like our own but tartans are all grey scale.

[768] A world just like our own but furniture is very shallow so you have to perch.

[769] A world just like our own but other people's snot is a delicacy.

[770] A world just like our own but farts sound like someone saying "why?"

[771] A world just like our own but spoons have a hole in the middle to encourage quick soup eating.

[772] A world just like our own, but Jeff Bezos owns time itself. Everyone has to buy time from him, so the amount of time you have correlates to your wealth. Jeff himself has a 63 day week. Some have just 2.

[773] A world just like our own but yo-yos just stay down there.

[774] A world just like our own but there's no soap, you hire a burly person to punch the germs off you.

[775] A world just like our own but most laws have "or whatever" at the end.

[776] A world just like our own but Crufts is judged by dogs.

[777] A world just like our own but chimney sweeps have tiny chimney sweep doppelgangers who clean their bumholes with their teeny weeny brooms.

[778] A world just like our own but there's corners on *everything*.

[779] A world just like our own but once born, every baby is put into a latex model of a lion and pushed out through its latex birth canal and this is photographed and it is displayed proudly in the home.

[780] A world just like our own but babybels are mainly wax.

[781] A world just like our own but most planning disputes are solved by duel.

[782] A world just like our own but you snooze, you win.

[783] A world just like our own but the birds and the bees actually mate and the offspring is horrific (honey comes from their cloacas).

[784] A world just like our own but loads more people get swallowed by whales than here, and it take an average of six to eight weeks for them to escape.

[785] A world just like our own but there is an emoji for Norfolk.

[786] A world just like our own but pie charts are only used for data relating to pies.

[787] A world just like our own but every year there's a public vote on 1 thing to add to the Full English Breakfast. Last year Chicken Livers won. This year's contenders are Scotch Egg, Lamb Shank and a chocolate mousse. The Full English currently contains 35 official foodstuffs

[788] A world just like our own, but books in the Murder Mystery genre generally concern a detective or detective-type trying to figure out what murder is.

[789] A world just like our own but P!nk gets very angry if you don't shout the "P" of her name - which is obviously meant to be shouted because there's a "!" straight after - and then say the "nk" bit at a normal level. She has pulled concerts halfway through because of it.

[790] A world just like our own but you can win chess if you either a) take your opponent's King or b) win the race to get some of your chess pieces into space.

[791] A world just like our own but they have spectacles for your nose to help you smell better.

[792] A world just like our own but P!nk gets a fright whenever she sees her name written down.

[793] A world just like our own but if you wrote in to Blue Peter and they didn't think you had a good enough reason to have a badge they would blacklist you, and all the museums around the UK would refuse you entrance, no matter what money you offered.

[794] A world just like our own but P!nk changed her name to Pl!nk after the sound a piano key makes when it needs to be tuned.

[795] A world just like our own but sandwiches are made with the slices of bread end to end, not face to face. This means they have a lot less filling, and they are a lot less convenient.

[796] A world just like our own, but P!nk was in a band with Bl&e, R#d, Mag^nta and Cy*n. The band was called Bl&e (and Pals) & that made P!nk furious so she killed them. She was found innocent of any crime as, legally, you can't kill people if they don't have proper names.

[797] A world just like our own but hashtags are legally binding.

[798] A world just like our own but Star Wars is pronounced such that it rhymes.

[799] A world just like our own but Bill Gates made his fortune inventing gates (named after himself). Gates aren't the same thing there as here, mind: they're portable torture devices for the despot on the go. He's a renowned philanthropist, donating to 4 pro-torture charities.

[800] A world just like our own, but Gregg's sell Traditional (and vegan) Gender Rolls. These are fantastically popular, although no one really likes the taste and they have little to no nutritional value.

[801] A world just like our own, but if you can't get through a door without ducking, you're not allowed in.

[802] A world just like our own, but Van Gogh was a barista and expressed himself artistically through the drawings he did in the milk on top of flat whites. They were truly terrific, but lost to the annals of time because they were drunk. No one has ever heard of him.

[803] A world just like our own, but Marilyn Monroe wore trousers to protect against gusts.

[804] A world just like our own, but in 2010 Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat reimagined Basil The Great Mouse Detective (1986) as a crime procedural set in the modern era called Basil. It was much-loved, but did get a bit convoluted. And how did all those mice get smartphones?

[805] A world just like our own, but Amelia Earhart, in a wonderful display of nominative determinisim, became the first woman to shrink down really small and circumnavigate the human ear.

[806] A world just like our own, but Huey Lewis and the News were owned by Rupert Murdoch.

[807] A world just like our own but in Columbo (1971-1978) whenever the title character would say "just one more thing" the next thing he'd say would be a question about his appearance, such as "does this coat suit me?" or "would you say I look slim?"

[808] A world just like our own but foot doctors examining suspected ingrown toenails give their diagnosis to the same tune as the danone jingle - "Mmm, ingrown."

[809] A world just like our own, but if you demur you're not allowed to say that you demur. You just demur but don't draw attention to it.

[810] A world just like our own but narwhals are imaginary and unicorns exist.

[811] A world just like our own but you have to sign a waiver at birth saying you understand and accept the risks.

[812] A world just like our own but marzipan fruits are very, very popular. More popular than real fruits. The almond purists are quite upset about it & run a yearly "Let Almonds Be Almonds" campaign. Someone made an almond out of marzipan and the almond purists lost their shit.

[813] A world just like our own but UK entrant Gina G won the 1996 Eurovision Song Contest with "Ooh Aah... Just a Little Bit." This led, in a roundabout fashion, to an unprecedented era of global war.

[814] A world just like our own, but global population is maintained on a one-in-one-out policy.

[815] A world just like our own but the fortunes in fortune cookies are always a) much more specific and b) unfailingly correct.

[816] A world just like our own but Russian Roulette is just like normal roulette, it's just in Russia.

[817] A world just like our own, but model railways aren't small, they're just exemplary.

[818] A world just like our own but there's no glue of any kind, they use bulldog clips of various sizes instead.

[819] A world just like our own but the name "Terry" is spelled "Teryy."

[820] A world just like our own but gravity is opt-in.

[821] A world just like our own but when you win the Oscar for Best Film the academy ban you from ever making a film again in case you tarnish your legacy artistically. Only artistically, mind, they don't care about anything else.

[822] A world just like our own, but you don't get taught the number 3 until you're sixteen because it looks like a bum and that's inappropriate!

[823] A world just like our own but skateboards are only for dogs.

[824] A world just like our own but the side of the road you're meant to drive on changes at the weekend.

[825] A world just like our own but figleaves have slowly been learning to grow messages in English on their surface. At the moment they saying "ples stopp putin gus ther we dunt want totouch it."

[826] A world just like our own but Adam Lambert tours as a solo artist under the name "Queen + Adam Lambert - Queen = ."

[827] A world just like our own but as well as Art Galleries they have Definitely-Not-Art Galleries where they exhibit things which are Definitely-Not-Art. Trouble is, as soon as you put Definitely-Not-Art in a gallery, it starts to look like art, so the exhibits change a lot.

[828] A world just like our own but Disney hired Mark Rothko to do the character design for Lady and the Tramp. It's very hard to work out what's going on, but it's undeniably moving.

[829] A world just like our own, but the Vengaboys biggest hit was Vengarailreplacementbusservice.

[830] A world just like our own but cartographers have been making stuff up since the start & are on the verge of being found out. If you meet one you'll find they're very nervy, & self-medicating with booze for fear of the world finding out they've been cooking the maps.

[831] A world just like our own but there's a craze for Extreme Bungee-Jumping, which is done from a very low height, with a normal-sized cord.

[832] A world just like our own but everyone's agreed there's no such thing as cellos, they're just big violins.

[833] A world just like our own but the trombone is used as a weapon much more often. The trick is to play something entertaining while biffing someone in the face at the same time. It's regularly seen in MMA matches.

[834] A world just like our own but snitches get twixes.

[835] A world just like our own but when a magician offers you a card it's generally because it's evidence in a murder trial and he needs to get rid of it.

[836] A world just like our own but Mr Kipling eschewed the cake world, and went into the meat trade. He traded with the slogan "He doesn't make exceedingly good cakes."

[837] A world just like our own but people don't go white water rafting, they walk along the river side instead - or, if that's not possible, follow the nearest appropriate footpath.

[838] A world just like our own, but a "Yokel" isn't a derogatory term for people from agricultural communities, it's a celebratory term for singing eggs from the alps.

[839] A world just like our own but forks are very long and knives are very short, which presents obvious challenges at dinnertime.

[840] A world just like our own but every iteration of the Sugababes actually consisted of Mutya, Keisha and Siobhan wearing a series of disguises.

[841] A world just like our own but Top Cat (1961-1962) was a Hanna Barbera cartoon about a feline gang leader. It centred on the lived experience of being a gay cat on the Manhattan streets, and on Top Cat's relationship with his boyfriend (Bottom Cat). (1/2)

Plots involving run-ins with Officer Dibble anticipated the Stonewall Riots by 7 years. (2/2)

[842] A world just like our own but police stings always involve a human-scale mousetrap loaded with a tempting crime.

[843] A world just like our own but Rice Krispies mascots are called "Snip, Cronckle and Poop" and no one buys Rice Krispies.

[844] A world just like our own but Mary Norton's The Borrowers is a much more critical account called Tiny Fucking Thieves.

[845] A world just like our own, but Jesus Christ kept himself to himself.

[846] A world just like our own, but Harry Houdini wowed crowds by not being so stupid as to tie himself up in a water tank in the first place. Thousands applauded his good common sense.

[847] A world just like our own but on Christmas Day everyone has to get up in front of their family, stand in front of the Christmas Tree, and rank their presents from best to worst.

[848] A world just like our own but all trousers have velcro down the sides, not just stripper trousers. This makes bedtime more dramatic, but they do have a habit of getting caught on things and causing embarrassment.

[849] A world just like our own, but Tinder just has pictures of people's thumbs.

[850] A world just like our own, but chairs were invented for lion taming, and people were delighted to find they were pretty good for sitting on too.

[851] A world just like our own, but all the zookeepers are trying to *stop* pandas banging, because they're at it all the time and there's baby pandas everywhere, and they keep getting stuck in things and clogging up waterpipes and blocking the roads.

[852] A world just like our own but the country to the north of the USA is called Panada and it's all pandas and maple syrup.

[853] A world just like our own but the winner of Crufts' Best in Show gets to present a prime time show on ITV1.

[854] A world just like our own but no one came up with the idea of Hot Chocolate until the band Hot Chocolate came along with their hit You Sexy Thing. People thought "I like sexy things" and then "wait I wonder what chocolate would be like hot?"

[855] A world just like our own but sailors don't learn knots, they carry glue.

[856] A world just like our own but Captain Birdseye prioritised his naval career. He's now Admiral Birdseye, and you can't get Fish Fingers anywhere.

[857] A world just like our own but The Simpsons aged in real time.

[858] A world just like our own but Noah made little holes in all the ark's cabins so he could watch the animals doing it. This displeased God, but he found it hard to admit he'd made a mistake, so he killed Noah with a hyper localised flood and made it look like natural causes.

[859] A world just like our own but Charlie Brown went postal after Lucy van Pelt pulled the ball away one too many times. Only Brown is responsible for his actions. But we do need to look at the media,& what being relegated to the "Funnies" must do to a young man's self esteem.

[860] A world just like our own but traffic lights are different brightnesses not different colours.

[861] A world just like our own, but one of the pieces on the Chessboard is the Tiny Pig. It's absolutely miniscule, so normally get lost, but if you can find it you can use it to make a squealing noise to confuse your opponent's pieces.

[862] A world just like our own but no one has ever successfully done a 100m sprint. The closes anyone's got is 99m and then they went "nah, I don't reckon I can do this."

[863] A world just like our own but they don't have these emojis: 🥚🔫🤡🧐🛵⚓️❤️🙂🤣🤖. Instead they have smiling turds for each of the seven categories of the Bristol Stool Chart.

[864] A world just like our own but when anyone's life ends they say what the moral of their story was just before dying.

[865] A world just like our own, but most people who eat eggs have at least six egg-sized wigs, which they put on the eggs while they're in their little box waiting to be cooked with. They're generally beehives, but you do come across the occasional Farrah Fawcett.

[866] A world just like our own but "beehive" hairstyles do have bees in them.

[867] A world just like our own but along with traffic conductors there are also traffic lead violinists.

[868] A world just like our own, but carrot cake tastes predominantly of carrot.

[869] A world just like our own but there are special travel agencies for carpenters which do awl-inclusive holidays.

[870] A world just like our own but everyone thinks they're the only one who's got a skeleton under their skin, and they're all terrified what everyone else would think if they found out.

[871] A world just like our own but in 1999 Tony's Hawk Pro Skater was released for several home consoles. In it, you have to skate while a hawk keeps trying to steal your board. Through combinations of button pressing you ccan plead with Tony to get his hawk under control.

[872] A world just like our own but owls run the place.

[873] A world just like our own, but Fred Flintstone doesn't go "yabba-dabba-doo!" when his working day finishes, he goes "yibby-dibby-daa," and he says it very quietly so his boss doesn't question his commitment to the job.

[874] A world just like our own, but pupils don't take turns to take home the class hamster, they take turns to take home the class teacher, who has no fixed abode.

[875] A world just like our own but guitars are tethered to the wall of your house so you can't take them to parties.

[876] A world just like our own but the Michelin Man does all the restaurant reviews for the Michelin Guide. The only taste he enjoys is burning rubber.

[877] A world just like our own but birds walk if they can (they don't like to show off.)

[878] A world just like our own but if you win the pub quiz you win the pub.

[879] A world just like our own but if you get in a bubble bath the bubbles shout "Are you a bubble?!" and when you say no they shout "Then what part of 'bubble bath" don't you understand??"

[880] A world just like our own, but Cleopatra would bathe in milt.

[881] A world just like our own but the signs on toilets public toilets are very specific, and if it's not a picture of your exact face then you're not meant to go in.

[882] A world just like our own but Jurassic Park (1993) has a lot more moments when you hear a voice off-camera yell "Did somebody say 'Dinosaur??!'" and then the dinosaur who presumably just yelled that runs on screen and does a dance.

[883] A world just like our own but The Godfather Part III (1990) took a lead from Bugsy Malone (1976) and recast all the characters with child actors. The songs were written by whoever was available at the time, which was mainly Black Lace and Johnny Cash.

[884] A world just like our own but The Ellen Degeneres Show (2003-present) features no guests. Ellen Degeneres just sits on her sofa and stares unblinkingly at her studio audience. On special occasions, the final five minutes see her fire a member of staff.

[885] A world just like our own but every meal is served in soup form (put through a blender) unless specified otherwise.

[886] A world just like our own but when Peter Gabriel left Genesis Phil Collins joined him. Even though Gabriel kept saying "You know, Phil, I'd like to do this by myself" Collins just feigned incomprehension, until Gabriel left & his solo act consisted of just Phil Collins.

[887] A world just like our own but Angela Merkel left politics in 2013 and started running a German
Themed Christmas Market in Frankfurt. People kept pointing out that they didn't need a German Themed Christmas Market because they *were* German, but she didn't listen.

[888] A world just like our own, but when the lid is too hard to get off a jar, they smash the jar on the surface and spread whatever was inside on toast, bits of glass and all.

[889] A world just like our own but Fanta's sogan is "Designed for the Nazis, Loved by You."

[890] A world just like our own but people don't buy haircuts, they buy hats.

[891] A world just like our own but Nail Bars are bars where people go to buy finger-and-toenail clippings.

[892] A world just like our own but drumkits have a thing that goes "No" when you hit it.

[893] A world just like our own but Pancake Day is a day when you celebrate pancakes, and so DO NOT eat them. You put them on a pedestal and you beg forgiveness from them for all the times you have eaten pancakes before.

[894] A world just like our own but alphabetical order is a lot more changeable.

[895] A world just like our own but if you say it's a dog, it's a dog.

[896] A world just like our own but the police train children to sniff out drugs.

[897] A world just like our own but where we have loads of saying about eggs, they have loads of sayings about prawns.

[898] A world just like our own, but the most popular meal is a boiled egg omelette. This is like an omelette, but the filling is chopped up boiled egg.

[899] A world just like our own, but Byker Grove (1989-2006) was was just the word "Byker" repeated over and over again for half an hour, and then the word "Grove" said once. It put Newcastle upon Tyne on the map.

[900] A world just like our own but "Silly String" is just called "String." What we would call "String" is called "Sensible String."

[901] A world just like our own, but Cerberus the canine guardian of the underworld has one head and three bumholes.

[902] A world just like our own but when you draw three lines above a coffee cup it doesn't mean it's hot, it means it stinks.

[903] A world just like our own, but kangaroos keep flick knives in their pouches and make the joeys hop.

[904] A world just like our own but the line between "hat" and "helmet" is a lot more blurred.

[905] A world just like our own, but Hanna Barbera made a wildly popular cartoon series called Tom and Gerry Adams, about a cat who would chase and try to eat an Irish republican.

The Gerry Adams character was redubbed by an english voice actor.

[906] A world just like our own but Natalie Portman went into the family business of making fortified wine.

[907] A world just like our own, but the absolute rudest words that you cannot say on TV are "nincompoop," "twit," and "silly sausage." But they say "c___" on the Antiques Roadshow - as in "This c___'s never worth that you silly c___."

[908] A world just like our own but there were 8 dwarves: Sleepy, Sneezy, Grumpy, Happy, Bashful, Dopey, Doc and Brandon. Brandon was a real f___boy.

[909] A world just like our own but you put trousers on after your shoes, and trousers legs are wider to accommodate this.

[910] A world just like our own but in 1993 the search for Wally was called off and he was pronounced missing, presumed dead two years later.

[911] A world just like our own, but there's only one type of biscuit, the garibaldi, and two types of people: Garries, who are bald, and Barries, who are generous. So a typical conversation might go: (1/2)

Barry: Garibaldi, baldy Garry?
Garry: Golly Barry! For baldy Garry, a garibaldi?
Barry: Baldy Garry, a Garibaldi, from bally Barry.
Garry: Baldy Garry's jolly happy, lovely Barry. (2/2)

[912] A world just like our own but the best selling dessert brand is called "Oh No You Pudding!" which doesn't make any sense.

[913] A world just like our own but the Great Train Robbery is known as the OK Train Robbery because everyone's much harder to impress.

[914] A world just like our own, but at a wedding when the priest says “and do you take this man to be your lawful, wedded husband?” he follows it up with “or do you want to GAMBLE on the Mystery Star Prize?” And then the guests shout out “GAMBLE!” or “HE’S FINE!”

[915] A world just like our own, but *anything* wrapped in marzipan is a battenberg cake.

[916] A world just like our own, but William Shakespeare wrote "Romeo & Juliet" with an eye on getting something in the NATO phonetic alphabet from the start. Rumours of a lost play "Papa Charlie and the Golf Hotel" remain uncorroborated.

[917] A world just like our own but "chop, chop!" means "slow down," which makes sense because knives and other chopping implements should be used with caution.

[918] A world just like our own but disco balls are most associated with warfare.

[919] A world just like our own, but in "Whack-a-Mole" you have to try and kill a specific mole and dispose of the body without the authorities finding out, in exchange for a sum of money from another animal with a vendetta.

[920] A world just like our own but Up escalators aren't joined to anything at the top.

[921] A world just like our own, but if you fill a swimming pool with custard you are given £1,000,000.

[923] A world just like our own but swarms of bees form arrows and other shapes in the air in real life, not just in cartoons.

[922] A world just like our own, but shifted slightly forward in time.

[924] A world just like our own, but in one of the boxes in Deal or No Deal there would always be a 1:12 scale sculpture of a nude Noel Edmonds, usually in "perineum sunning" position.

[925] A world just like our own, but tyre swings are swings for tyres. Which seems fair, because they never get anything nice.

[926] A world just like our own, but in Big (1988) Josh Baskin wishes to be big, and wakes up the next morning to find he is 12x the size of earth, and also Tom Hanks. He tries to fight his desperate hunger, but eventually has to give in and eats Mars, Venus, Mercury (1/2)

(which, in a comic scene, burns his tongue) and then, finally, earth. Having eaten earth, the spell wears off. Child Josh Baskin then suffocates in space. Credits roll and chopsticks plays. (2/2)

[927] A world just like our own, but plumbers try and use as many pipes as possible, which they fit in lots of twisty turny directions, so the water gets to have some fun.

[928] A world just like our own but Batman's parents were Mr and Mrs Batfolks, and when they were shot in an alley he foreswore being a Batman and moved into business to solve Gotham's crime problems through trickle down economics.

[929] A world just like our own, but similes are banned. It is what it is.

[930] A world just like our own but the Oompa Loompas aren't so preoccupied with rhyming. As members of the Oulipo literary group, they're more interested with constrained writing methods - such as "this song won't use the letter 'E'" or "this song must not mention children."

[931] A world just like our own but the Burger King was overthrown & replaced with a constitutional democracy. The burgers vote for the leader and, amazingly, they still keep voting for people who want to sell them as food. But that may partly to be with the 2 party system.(1/2)

To clarify - the 2 party system is that there are two birthday parties a week, and the kids seem to have so much fun at them that the burgers think "who are we to take that from them?" (2/2)

[932] A world just like our own, but at the theatre when the show starts they don't just open the curtain, they also construct the stage and build the set from scratch. It takes a long time, but it really builds anticipation.

[933] A world just like our own but none of the Muppets, or the residents of Sesame Street, have eyes. Jim Henson just never got around to gluing them on.

[934] A world just like our own but any body of water bigger than a drinking glass-full counts as a lake.

[935] A world just like our own but in snooker the balls are cubes.

[936] A world just like our own but Winston Churchill would often absentmindedly put his cigar in his mouth the wrong way round and his recorded speeches were peppered with him going "ow, my tongue!"

[937] A world just like our own but when you go to see the dentist they'll, 7 times out of every 10, try and talk you into letting them give you a beak.

[938] A world just like our own, but Babybel's slogan is "Not Just Wax - Cheese Too!"

[939] A world just like our own but everybody is soluble so you have to wash very quickly, and NEVER cry.

[940] A world just like our own but there was a real boom in strongmen in the 80s, whose reckless ripping up of Yellow Pages led to them just stopping making Yellow Pages entirely.

[941] A world just like our own, but doors hinge at the bottom, not the side.

[942] A world just like our own but everyone is unknowingly trapped in a simulation of watching the Matrix Reloaded (2003) and the third one too whatever that's called.

[943] A world just like our own, but M. Night Shyamalan personally attends all screenings of his films to tell you the twist before it starts, so you don't get a shock. BUT he always tells you "the twist is... there *is* no twist" and then there IS a twist. So screw that guy.

[944] A world just like our own, but sausages can have anything in them, and be any shape - so there's an awful lot of things which count as a sausage: pillows, beanbags, balloons, barrels of oil, the list goes on.

[945] A world just like our own, but drummers don't do rimshots after jokes, they do it after something sad has happened.

[946] A world just like our own but every street has a monarch, and they're generally arseholes - always making you pay tithes or invade neighboring streets or suddenly taking your garden to keep their swans in.

[947] A world just like our own, but you can only have sex if you've been on a course.

[948] A world just like our own but Louis Braille designed his writing system so all the dots were really sharp and everyone was like "you utter bastard" & all the people who had to use it were like "ow my fingers" & Louis Braille was never allowed to design anything ever again.

[949] A world just like our own, but in Golf the aim is to hit the ball off a tree so it bounces back and hits you hard, square in the face (it's still played in acres of once-beautiful countryside).

[950] A world just like our own, but there *is* accounting for taste. And every January 31st you have to tot up how tasteful you were in the year up to the preceeding April 5th, and pay an amount of tax inversely proportional to that.

[951] A world just like our own but Jools Holland has been doing a lot more boogy-woogying during this whole lockdown period & to be honest it makes more sense because you'd reckon he'd be absolutely front & centre at a time like this. Unless he's in lockdown here *sans* piano??

[952] A world just like our own but one of the core cast of Cheers! (1982 - 1993) was Peter the Talking Condom Machine. He went on to star in a spin off called Peter the Talking Condom Machine (1993 - 2004), in which he relocated to Seattle to host a radio show. (1/2)

In Seattle we see him interact with his brother Chuck, who is also a Talking Condom Machine, and his father Marty, a retired policeman. (2/2)

[953] A world just like our own but if you say "whoops-a-daisy!" straight afterwards, you are let off any crime.

[954] A world just like our own, but at a funeral, a roast of the deceased is customary. Friends, family, and comedians of varying abilities gather to playfully insult the dearly departed and cook them on a spit over a fire.

[955] A world just like our own, but the word for "guilty" is also the word for "innocent," it all comes down to tone. This has led to some grave miscarriages of justice.

[956] A world just like our own but jugglers are always stealing your satsumas.

[957] A world just like our own but when a football match starts they don't flip a coin to decide who starts, they flip a grand piano. The game is then also a bit more interesting, because all the player have to navigate around the broken grand piano.

[958] A world just like our own but Bros. had a mentor figure called Wayne, and they wrote a sing about him called "Wayne, will I, will I be famous?" He couldn't answer that.

[959] A world just like our own but everything's a teeny bit more cramped.

[960] A world just like our own but the human digestive system works in both directions, and just as food inserted into point A comes out from as waste from point B, waste inserted into point B comes out as food from point A.

[961] A world just like our own but there's a second Australia in the Atlantic.

[962] A world just like our own but all animals say the word for their noise, rather than make the noise. So a wolf says "howl," a pig says "oink," a frog says "ribbit," a camel says, and so on and so forth. They all speak with a Lancastrian accent.

[963] A world just like our own, but butter comes Salted, Unsalted or With Tiny Feet.

[964] A world just like our own, but you are not allowed a surname which is a type of job, if you do not do that job.

[965] A world just like our own but bananas are treated with a lot more reverence.

[966] A world just like our own, but Macklemore & Ryan Lewis introduced a sort of topsy-turvy nemesis character called Wacklemore and people have really warmed to Wacklemore and that’s made Macklemore & Ryan Lewis sad.

[967] A world just like our own, but if someone puts their penis through a hole in a toilet cubicle, someone on the other side will paint it to look like a clown, a tiger, a butterfly or a Spider-Man (according to request).

[968] A world just like our own, but podcasting started about 20 years before it did here, and by now most off the podcasts are two people in a room discussing their favourite true crime podcasts.

[969] A world just like our own, at hallowe’en people don’t carve pumpkins they carve baby potatoes. They have to replace the candles frequently because they’re so tiny they burn down quick.

[970] A world just like our own but your every move is monitored by a clone of Bob Fosse who then demands you do it with more razzmatazz.

[971] A world just like our own, but George Orwell wrote books about penguins for children so “Orwellian” means “fun” and “featuring penguins.”

[972] A world just like our own, but they don’t tell you there are eggs in mayonnaise.

[973] A world just like our own but frighteningly realistic.

[974] A world just like our own, but the tonsils dangle from the centre of the top lip.

[975] A world just like our own, but there are for more A's in the word razzamatazz, so it's razazamazatazaza. This leads to rehearsals for musicals overrunning.

[976] A world just like our own, but there's one type of dinosaur still left. It's a really boring one, though, so no one's really fussed.

[977] A world just like our own, but Chumbawamba were a lot more reasonable. Take the lyrics to "Tubthumping" for example: they go "I get knocked down, but I get up again. Based on what we know, it's unlikely either you, or somebody else, will succeed in keeping me down."

[978] A world just like our own, but pillows are sold primarily as Screaming-Into Devices. (1/2)

They have a little note on the packaging saying "DID YOU KNOW? You can also use your Screaming-Into Device to rest you head on while you sleep! When you wake up, it'll be right there waiting for your first scream of the day 😊." (2/2)

[979] A world just like our own, but they've filled all the canyons in for safety.

[980] A world just like our own but in Mrs Doubtfire (1993) Daniel Hillard never removes any prosthetics, he just has more put on top. So when he's Mrs Doubtfire he has a Daniel Hillard disguise put on top, then when he needs to to turn back he has a (1/2)

Mrs Doubtfire disguise put on top of that. By the end of the restaurant scene, Mrs Doubtfire is 6 feet diameter and 15 feet high. (2/2)

[981] A world just look like our own, but the official Bird of Peace is the hyena. The hyena - being quite rowdy and not being a bird at all - has to put a lot of acting work in.

[982] A world just like our own but EDM DJs are classed as as electricians.

[983] A world just like our own but they're selling hippy wigs in Woolworths *again.* What's gone on there?

[984] A world just like our own but Saturday Night Live (1975-present) has still not finished their first sketch. Musical guest ABBA is yet to play their first track.

[985] A world just like our own, but if you order a BLT sandwich you'll get a sandwich with Bacon, Lemsip and Tinfoil in it.

[986] A world just like our own, but Billy Joel was arrested, tried and jailed shortly after the release of "We Didn't Start the Fire," because everyone thought "someone's protesting a bit too much here."

[987] A world just like our own but Steven Spielberg put his money where his mouth is and adopted ET after filming wrapped.

[988] A world just like our own, but Davydd Hughes - an 8-year-old from Llandudno, Wales - won the Space Race.

[989] A world just like our own, but toilet paper is paper you decorate a toilet with. It's surprisingly expensive.

[990] A world just like our own but in Charles Dickens' classic work A Christmas Carol, when Ebeneezer Scrooge is visited by three ghosts he remains steadfastly unchanged and sets up a very profitable exorcism company. The moral is that you should have strength of character.

[991] A world just like our own, but the James Bond fims have a lot more (very long) scenes where Bond is getting frustrated trying to do up his bowtie while consulting a "how-to" jpeg on his tablet.

[992] A world just like our own but, every christmas, instead of snowmen, children build leg or breastmen: men built out of legs or breasts. They still have carrots for noses. Raymond Briggs' animation is harrowing, but still played every Christmas morning.

[993] A world just like our own, but whenever they do the olympic torch relay 4 to 5 cities are accidentally burnt to the ground.

[994] A world just like our own but wine also comes in blue.

[995] A world just like our own, but when you order oysters in a restaurant they're served in their full shells, and when you pick them up the shells open and close and say "wahay!"

[996] A world just like our own, but The One Show lives up to its name, and is the sole TV show. There are no others.

[997] A world just like our own but, for a small fee, you're allowed to get inside Claw Machines, and just wait there for someone to put a coin in and lower the Claw so that, with a bit of luck, you can feel what it feels like to be held.

[998] A world just like our own, but after cremation the ashes are sold to climbers to put them in the little bags strapped to their waists, so they can clap them on their hands to get more traction when they head up the wall.

[999] A world just like our own but when you dial the emergency services you have to say "Hello, how are you?" to the operator, and then have a small conversation with them so they feel valued before you report the issue. If you hurt their feelings, they might hang up.

[1000] A world just like our own but Pythagoras was teased by the other ancient Greeks - they'd say "Jesus, Pyth, if you love triangles so much, why don't you marry one??" He said "Who's Jesus?" then married a triangle, & Greece is to this day full of half-people-half-triangles.

[1001] A world just like our own but everyone has great big wobbly bottoms and there are massive wobbly wibbly bottoms wobbly wibbling everywhere wobblewubblewibblewabble and everyone's like "that's a very wobbly bottom" and everyone else is like "so's that!"