Explained: The National Coal Board Poll, 2012.
The NCB mined the nation’s psyche, and found mainly coal.
It was a dark, stormy night.
one million vitamins and things.
Possibly, those were the climactic conditions and time of day when the National Coal Board decided to conduct a nationwide poll. At the time, the NCB was in charge of the nationalised coal industry and all Welsh-themed pornography.
After months of debate, the NCB determined that the poll should, if feasible, try to find things out.
Efforts were hampered by the fact that the NCB had been disbanded in 1994, following when that man with the accordion got pushed down the stairs and hurted his shins. Wasn’t his name Dennis something?
Yet in the abandoned offices, one crazed lady battled on. Her name was Jackie Jockey.
Somehow, Mrs. Jock Jackie managed to gather 114,000 responses to the aforementioned poll. It’s the largest of its kind ever conducted without using plasticene.
What follows is a summary of her findings. OK?
A summary of her findings. OK?
Let’s cut the crap right now and get to the results, which tell us the favourite whatevers of the smelly British public and their stupid thoughts. Ready?
- Favourite source of carbon: coal
- Favourite colour: coal
- Favourite flavour: coal OR creme eggs with added coal (tie)
- Favourite animal: coal-donkey
- Favourite bodily organ: the Gib-O-Matic
- Favourite book: V.S. Naipaul’s I Really Like Coal or The Best Nuisance I Can Be (tie)
- Favourite football-related phrase: “Oh no it’s an own coal!”
- Favourite Bond film: Thundercoal (Coalfinger came second)
- Favourite Blenny that lives under the water: Tompot Blenny
- Favourite type of coal: coal
- Favourite thing found in a coal mine: fossilised pit pony OR Weetabix in a cup (tie)
- Favourite thing overall, out of anything: coal
- Favourite poll: National Coal Board 2012 Poll
What did surprised us.
What did surprised us about this NCB poll was quite how popular coal was. And, by jingo, in that many categories.
It’s interesting when you think about it. And it’s interesting when you don’t think about it, too. What we’re saying is that its interestingness is not contingent upon your contemplation.
“Good old Jeffrey Jockey!”
All that aside, good old Jack Jeffries! If you were born in 2012, you wouldn’t exist without this poll, because it’s what gave your dad the horn when he was looking at your mum. Literally nothing else was working.
That’s all for this time, but we’ll be back with more amazing Minty facts soon! Burglar.
Not as silly as the above.
But still fairly silly.
The Best Nuisance I Can Be isn’t full of outright nonsense like the above, but does contain a fair amount of daftness. It’s a novelisation of my real 1984-85 college diaries, covering my final undergraduate year. That tumultuous time was jam-packed full of friendship, love, fun… as well as horrible self-discovery.
If you ‘get’ the page you’ve just read, then you’ll instinctively understand why hiding my neighbour’s glasses inside a frozen chicken, introducing myself as ‘NKAARK!!’, and sending drawings of a shark eating Christmas cake to Lloyd’s Bank were – and remain – necessary activities.
