Predictoshock: 2012 Uncovered

1 Teaspoons (property of J.Marr).

2 The end of.

3 England will lose.

4 Outlawed at last.

5 The scary hand of death.

6 Pliers.

7 Lost forever, and not a good word to say on the matter.

8 You clumsy twat.

9 Beware of predictions.

10 Controversial decision.

11 If only.

12 The same as last year.

13 And finally… None of the above.

Food for Thought

This is an extract from a great book which I received at Christmas called: “How Our Mother Earth is Dying and What We Can Do to Save Her”

Dr Marmalade Shop, Professor of Pretendology at the University of You Couldn’t Make This Shit Up But People Do All The Time, has explained the problem thus: “As the world faces an ever increasing population and the need for food increases, we must look for places where we can grow food. If each person could grow just a few crops within their lower intestine, then the world food shortage problem would be solved. There is no natural rainfall within the human body, hence the need for colonic irrigation.”

Remember: everything is your fault.

Christmas News!

A round-up this week’s most Festive Stories

Christmas under Attack from Penguins

An outraged church-goer today urged The Daily Mail to intensify its “Keep Christmas Safe!” campaign, which has now been going on forever, after it emerged that penguins had secretly been boycotting Midnight Mass. “I think it’s disgusting!” exclaimed the shrill-voiced woman. “Apparently these so-called penguins haven’t been regularly attending any Christian services for years.”

Funny Song about Jesus Is Used to Boost Show’s Profile

In a bid to boost the visibility of its sinking-ship chat show, “Jonathan Ross is Boring”, ITV Executives today banned a funny song about Jesus.

            “Clearly something needed to be done to put this show in the public consciousness, and what better way than to record a funny song about Jesus and then ban it? It’s certainly worked.”

Cook Bernard Matthews

Animal Right-on Activists have legally challenged the naming of Christmas. Speaking outside the High Court in London, a scruffy looking oik remarked, “No-one knows what ‘Christmas’ means anymore, and only Catholics are aware of what the suffix ‘-mas’ means." Turkey Murder Month, as it may well be called next year if the activists have their way, is not expected to affect Turkey’s proposed entry into the EU, “as they tend to eat kebabs at Christmas time out there.”

And finally…

Something to warm the cockerels. How lovely is that? 

Catch!

The Christmas Hand Grenade of Hate lands at the feet of someone who is too busy being right to turn the other cheek.

“It must be the rupture!” he surmises, and in a way it is.

His spleen.

The Conquest of The Conquest

Channelling the spirit of Sir William Topaz MacGonagall, after yet another blue-light trip to the Big Boxy Waiting House for the Not Yet Dead, I found myself furiously scribbling these lines, seemingly from the pen of the Master himself:

The Conquest of The Conquest

‘Twas in the year 2011, not 2011 BC, but rather 2011 AD,

That His Honour Christopher McGonigal was found reclining on

   his bed by his wife, who, some might say, was a lady;

That’s not Lady as in the wife of someone who has been knighted,

But rather, Lady: somebody whose company makes you feel delighted.

“Pray tell me,” quoth she, for she was a lady of Good Christian 

   Virtue, “what arts’t thou doing reclining on a bed when it’s not 

   even noon of a Saturday?

Normally, at such an hour as this, you’d be consulting 

   with genealogical websites like the one of the Church of the Saints, 

   the one they call Latterday.”

“Why, My Good Lady Wife, I do believe that at this particular 

   juncture, it might be deemed appropriate to call me an ambulance.”

“As you wish,” said she, “you’re an ambulance.”

“No, call for the services of the ambulance vis-à-vis a Me Going to 

   Hospital Situation, for that would be properly prudent.”

And his wife complied, for she was the sort of wife who would accede 

   to a spousal request, rather than one who wuden’t.

Following on from this, they journeyed to The Conquest, the hospital 

   once frequented by Spike Milligan,

Although he doesn’t need the services of a hospital anymore as his 

   condition is one in which he unlikely to get ill-again.

The doctor then spake in words which might have been thought by 

   some to be difficult to comprehend,

But which roughly translated as “You’ll need to stay in The Conquest 

   Hospital if you’d like to be helped get on the mend.”

So his wife and his daughter and his son and his grandson did give him 

   their heartfelt exhortations,

Namely, to remain steadfastly well overnight and not indulge in such 

   things as might be beyond his current physical limitations.

And it was at this point that the connection established by my Spirit Guide to Sir William Topaz MacGonagall was broken and thus the poem remained incomplete.

NB I’ve warned him that anymore bloody heart attacks and I’ll sodding well finish the poem myself (and yes, that was a threat).

‘Tis the Season to Be Jolly Angry

Magnificent Christmas Parcels square up to Easter Eggs in a Jealous War of Attrition over what is more important:

BEING BORN?

or

BEING BORN AGAIN?

Christmas presents wrapped in shiny, expensive paper which doesn’t rip when you wrap it on an awkwardly-shaped present (like a crucifix), strike a Just and Holy and Good and True Alliance with Wedding Confetti. Wedding Confetti knows its place; it also knows the true meaning of transience.

            Easter Eggs make an Unholy and Wrong Alliance with Hallowe’en Face Masks, who are known for their treachery, admiration of Adolf Hitler’s moustache, and ability to confuse Old People.

            A Phoney War ensues, during which each Seasonally Festive Superpower makes preparations for Final Victory.

In an unexpected move, Easter Eggs and Hallowe’en Masks launch a pre-emptive first strike on Wedding Confetti. Wedding Confetti is annihilated, and despite a furious rear-guard defensive manoeuvre by Christmas Gifts, nothing can be done to save it.

            Easter Eggs and Hallowe’en Masks look set for Certain Victory, but during the raid on Wedding Confetti, a payload is accidentally dropped on Eid-ul-Fitr, who mistakenly believes that Diwali candles are responsible.

            Diwali Candles hide behind Buddha, who is smiling benevolently and with a serenity which unnerves Eid-ul-Fitr.

            Cardboard Cut-Out Father Christmas shields everything with his sack of presents and temporarily deafens Hallowe’en Masks with his “Ho! Ho! Ho!”

            World War III and the inevitable, total destruction of humanity is averted when Ebeneezer Scrooge comes along and makes everyone see The Error of Their Ways.

            Easter Eggs and Christmas Stocking Fillers hug each other unconvincingly, swap cards and then Carry On As Normal until next year, when it will all kick off again.

The Unconventional Nonsense Ballad of Fanny Fish, Who Was Black (only not)

(but not Fishy Fanny, you um-whoopsy-naughty;

tsk! Honestly – some people!)

For JH

Oh! Swimmy, swirly, taily fish!

All splashy inna pondy-deep.

But what’s all this I see? Oh, dear –

An icy pond! Oh, waily-weep!

The fishies all get icy-death,

So fish and chips for lunch – Mmmmm, nice!

Though sob and sniff and boo and hoo!

But wait! Here’s John to smash ve ice.

He bash and bang and smash and crack,

All hitty-hit like crazy-head!

“No! Stop!” said wifey, Julia,

“Them fishies all get deaf and dead!”

Then Johnny Ice-Smash stopped, but not

Before two holes in ice so creaky,

He’d pierce-y pierced the pondy-lining,

So all the fish get dead from leaky!

But wait! Here come the cavalry,

With nets ‘n’ that to catch the fishies,

Who maybe not get et for tea,

Perhaps they won’t end up on dishies?

Hooray! And splendy! Fab ‘n’ ace,

The fish so warm, they’ll tan-tan-tanny!

“Hang on a sec!” seth Julia,

“My fav’rite fish ain’t here – where’s Fanny?!”

(sinister corduroys)

They searched for Fanny with a net,

They searched for Fanny, yes they did.

But sigh and sob and waily-woe!

Poor Fan was lost or dead or hid.

The Blackest Beaut from Joolziz pond,

That Fishy Fanny – where she be?

They search and search, but all a-vain,

For Fanny fish they could not see.

Oh, fishy Fanny! Fanny fish!

Please show your swishy-fishy tail!

‘Allo? What’s this? She’s here? But GREY?!!!!

Oh, great! Oh, fab! Oh, epic fail!

And so the fishies all were safe,

And did not end up in a tummy.

And ev’ryone was la-la smiles,

Espeshy Jules, the fishies’ Mummy.

Ve End.

By Fishguts McIrriot

The Daze of the Weak

Monday’s child is born on a Monday.

Tuesday’s child is confused.

Wednesday’s child cannot spell or pronounce “obloquy”.

Thursday’s child is a pigeon fancier.

Friday’s child swims with the dolphins (maaaaaaan).

Saturday’s child is lactose intolerant.

But the child that is born on the Sabbath Day

Bites the heads off chickens when no-one is looking.

You Will Enjoy Christmas

No Christmas would be complete without an Old Man in a Hat telling us what Christmas is all about.

            With that in mind, courtesy of Nincompoop the Ninth, Pope of the Breakaway Non-conformist Uncatholic Church of Hell’s Bells, here is this year’s

                        List of Things Which You Must Enjoy at Christmas

1 Cliff Richard’s orthodontic treatment,

Say cheese!

2 Morecambe and Wise Christmas Special from 1975.

‘Arf, ‘arf, ‘arf! I can’t stop laughing!

3 Getting up at 3.37 a.m. with the children.

Fantastic and smash! The longer the day, the more the hooray!

4 The Contents of the Argos Catalogue

All wrapped up, shiny and yippee!

5 Slade

So here it is, dreadful music… splendy and fab!

6 Too much

Season’s Gruntings one and all,

Gosh bless us every fool!

[Failure to comply with Christmas will be met with excommunication from the Church of the Latterday ITV Executives.]

Today's Discoveries

Scientists today neither confirmed nor denied that they had discovered – or not – the elusive Big Boatswain, or “God Only Knows Particle.”

            “This is a really exciting announcement,” said a man in a coat.

Asked what it proved, a self-important journalist remarked that, “scientists don’t have a life. They want to find out what gives matter its mass? I would have thought that it was obvious that the basic building block of the universe was Lego.”

            A derr-ficko politician writing in The Daily Mail, remarked, “Why oh why oh why, etc., can’t scientists look for something useful, like where all the money went?” Guardian readers felt smug, but for no good reason.

            In a later development, Angela Sarcastic, Supreme Ruler of the European Superstate, Eine Titanic, announced an exciting discovery. “Thanks to the disappearance of billions of Euros, taken from the wage packets of ordinary, hardworking mugs with no pensions, we can confirm the existence of financial Black Holes at the very heart of the European Parliamental. Ich bin eine lying, thieving bastard.”

            Scientists were unable to confirm that they had found a use for politicians, or that auditors were allowed passage on the SS Titanic.

The Paradiddle of the Not Bored Housewife

Jeffrey was talking to his Apostrophes about black holes, quantum mechanics and string theory. “So you see,” he said, “it really is possible for a camel to win an F1 race.” They were all amazing at this latest revelation, even Judas and his soon-to-be-hanged head.

            At that moment, a bored housewife approached Jeffrey.

            “I resent you referring to me as bored; that’s so typical. Any fule no that it is impossible for a housewife to be bored; we’re too busy and too bored, I mean important,” she shrieked, and stormed off.

            Jeffrey and his Apostrophes sat in stoned silence. Simon, who was called Teacher’s Pet, made to speak, but Jeffrey shushed him.

            When she was out of earshot, they all started laughing.

            “Don’t think I didn’t hear that!” came a voice, and they all looked shame-faced until.

            “So, you see,” said Jeffrey.

But they didn’t, as usual.

A Very Necessary Room

The rooms in Arabella Bandana’s house suited her every mood and whim. As well as the everyday dining-room, bedroom and cat-strangling room, Arabella’s house had, amongst other rooms: a plate-smashing room, a room-that-was-not-a-room room, a standing-still-and-pretending-to-be-a-lamp-post room, a spare spare-room and a room for every occasion.

A plate-smashing room? Everyone should have one, don’t you think?

Euroeka!

Due to a failure of its jokes, Germany has been cancelled. At an emergency meeting of the Emergency Council of Emergencies, Chancellor Helmut Helmet stated: “That’s showbiz!” The stony-faced leaders of the Eurozone vetoed the idea of Germany with immediate effect.

Kenneth Chinook-Helicopter’s Letter to Stan

Dear Stan,

            For Chintzmass this year, please, please me could I have and to hold onto your hats off to those responsible, the following things are not as they seem:

1

2 Not the same as the first (what am you think I be?).

3 The one after 909 (La-la-la! with harmonies from Paul Acartey).

4 Scone (whizz! zoom! bash! Ooh - poor joke).

5 That (no – that!).

6 This (yes – exactly; sigh of relief).

7 Some stuff (not too much stuff, just the right amount of stuff).

8

9 More than the last.

10 It’s all over now.

Thank you in advance for your consideration of these list of present and correct the spellings three times a lady Ga-Ga, all we need is radiohead to the hills are alive with the sound of.

Yours once-yearly,

HRH Lord Sir Kenneth Chinook of Helicopter

Ps 1 and 8 am teaspoons (property of JM, all shiny and old)

The Feat of the Inarticulate Contraption

A Reading from the Book of Tea Leaves.

In the fourth second of the ninth minute of the eleventh hour of the twelfth day of the third week of the sixth month, the Arch Anglophile Galadriel was sent by Gosh to a city of Galileo named Nazzyreth to give the goob news to a virgo, who was a virgo. And thus there was much rejoicing and wailing of Christmash Carol Vordemann from everyone but the virgo, who sat and sulked, for it was most unfair. And this fulfilled the prophecy which was written and believed by everyone apart from those who dibn’t and they went to the pub and barged into Midnight Mass on Christmash Eve. Something about shepherds.

This the worst of the Lot.

Response: Thank Gosh we aren’t virgos. 

Day-Late Robbery

Having nicked a joke from the previous day's blog, the Day-Late Robbery limped away disconsolately, as lame as the pun which it had belatedly stolen.

The Day-Late Assassin

The Day-Late Assassin surveyed the car park, took his bearings by consulting with his map and made his way to the hidden vantage point behind the fence at the edge of the disused storage depot. Once there, he assembled the deadly tools of his solitary, amoral trade and waited.

            Checking his watch, he calculated that he had, once again, cut it fine: only eight minutes to go. That couldn’t be right, surely? Where were the crowds? Where was the marching band? Where was the cavalcade?

            The Day-Late Assassin checked his watch again: seven minutes. Catching sight of the date, the Day-Late Assassin let out a weary sigh.

Not again.

School Report

I once came top in Latin (how?). It was a proud moment for my father (I imagine; he never said) as I was chosen with a handful of boffins to study Ancient Greek; he’d studied Greats at Oxford and probably felt how I would feel if one of my many children came over all poetic like (slim chance: too busy with girls, football or Camberwell carrots to bother with fey la-la-ness).

One would have thought that my Latin report would have been pretty darn cool? Well, not quite. The exact phrase which opened the report, which I remember exactly to this day (suffering, as I do, from an unnecessarily retentive memory, which is as much a curse as a blessing), was this:

McGonigal is a lazy and foolish child.

Say what you like about my old Latin teacher, you may comment, but at least he was perceptive. Well, perhaps. Perhaps not. He failed to mention that I was also disruptive, fickle, cruel, a bad influence, disorganized, and, above everything else, utterly, desperately bored, thus giving my parents a completely unbalanced representation of their youngest son.

Teachers, eh? Always hiding behind the language of obfuscation.

A Book

When you’ve been knocked down,

And feel you’ve lost the fight,

Remember life’s a book,

Which only you can write.

A Song

When you’re in a hole,

Where nobody can reach you,

Remember life’s a song,

That only love can teach you.

A Rainbow

When you’re feeling blue,

And all your skies are grey,

Remember life’s a rainbow,

That needs a rainy day.

A Fix

My fix, for fixing’s what I need,

Is Earl Grey tea, both strong and black.

I don’t do nicotine or weed,

Or LSD or H or crack,

Cocaine or speed or ‘e’ or smack.

To get me started, nothing’s finer

Than Earl Grey tea served in bone china.

Liebster Awards

Facetious fool that he undoubtedly am, fergustheirriot have been sacked. Here is his genuine Liebster Awardees, awarded to him favoursome blogs:


1.  http://marcusmoore.wordpress.com/ In a word: blog.

2. http://willhatchett.blogspot.com/ Good poems.

3. http://pantsofdeath.blogspot.com/ Surreal. Should write more.

4. http://raymondantrobus.blogspot.com/ Thought-provoking.

5. http://www.bradleysands.com/ Genius.

Yours sincerely,

Kenneth Chinook-Helicopter of Orange

The Lobster Award

The Lobster Award is passed around amongst the blogosphere, from one blogger to another five bloggers. The blogger in question chooses their five favourite blogs, posts them on their blog, then goes away to steal some teaspoons, or something. Oh, by the way: you're not allowed more than 200 followers (otherwise you are not a blogger, but, according to the UN, you're officially a cult).


Many thanks to the poet Sarah James http://www.sarah-james.co.uk/?page_id=7, who chose this as one of her five Lobster Award blogs.


My five are as follows:


1. http://fergusthepoet.blogspot.com/

2. http://fergusthepoet.blogspot.com/

http://fergusthepoet.blogspot.com/

3. http://fergusthepoet.blogspot.com/

4. http://fergusthepoet.blogspot.com/

7. http://fergusthepoet.blogspot.com/

Commiserations to the runners up, who were.

The 16:26 Powl of Borridge

For DL and GJ (aka NB)

Most families who grew up on our estate had the 16:00 tea-time, replete with tea, toast, scones, tea, jam, cream, Rottweilers, tea, and servants in Nirvana t-shirts to serve the whole lot. Our house was slightly less conventional (it always voted Communist and wore wellington boots on a Sunday), and my mother insisted we would have none of that upper middle-class, bourgeois 16:00 tea-time nonsense. No, instead, we had to have the 16:26 (the precise moment at which Uncle Jo Stalin had passed away) Powl of Borridge (my mother was dyslexic, on account of having gone to a Steiner school). Make that the proletariat’s 16:26 Powl of Borridge. She always managed to add just enough salt, but for what purpose, my eight brothers, six sisters and I never could tell. Even today, whenever I see a Powl of Borridge, I unthinkingly start singing “We’ll Keep the Red Flag Flying” and offer up a silent prayer for Uncle Jo Stalin, before I snap out of it and remember that I am a Captain of Industry responsible for running the armaments factories which maintain global military operations. I have a photograph of Margaret Thatcher in my office. I bet she never had to suffer years of eating Powls of Borridge.

Sir Josef Oik was talking to himself.

The Chrimblas Story, Part One

(from the Gospel Accordingly to St Kenneth of Chinook-Helicopter, who knew because someone telled him and he believed everthing beople tolb him)

Chapter 1 Verses 1 – 42

Chrimblas was fron a Holy Ghost and virtuoso fambly. Him father (that one) was a carpenter and him mother was a walrus and they had lots of nails in the house, which was a hovel (which am neeeeerly a hotel, or mayhaps a dislecksick hotel). And him famnly tree was like this: him Dad (the other one) was God; him Dad (not that one) was a carpentry lesson; and before his was a father, and another father and another father and another father, all the way back until. So, you get the picture: he had relations going way back, proving he was the Messianic.  

And him Mum, who was called Mum, was a Virgo, which meant that she was. Chrimblas was born in a table, with cows, sheep, goats, donkeys and geese and more cows and some hay and some straw and him Mum, the Virgo, and his Dad (that one) and also.

Coming soom: The Chrimblas Story, Part Two (wiv Los Angeles and and singing and and and shepherds and and and and stuff).

Bear Costume Relay Team

for RC

People wondered who was inside the giant charity bear costume (some even placed bets).

            Suggestions included: HRH Her Royal Majestic Highness (grovel, grovel, scrape, oooh, be I hever so ‘umble,  etc.) And So On The Queen, an absent Headmaster, another bear (and inside that one, another bear, etc., just like them dolls off of Russia), a pizza delivery man (lost), a “costume wearing artiste” who used to dress up as Mickey Mouse before realizing that there were better things he could do with his brief and pointless existence, Mother Theresa’s hedonistic fifteenth cousin ten times removed, nobody, Kenneth Chinook-Helicopter, and, finally, Johnny Marr’s cutlery service (led by his magic teaspoons, who are always the most charitably-minded of the eating irons).

But, in fact, it was all of them taking it in turns. While they were waiting for their go in the bear suit, they played a few rounds of that popular children’s game “We’re All Spoons!”, which they had to let The Queen win on account of her embarrassing temper tantrums when losing popular children’s games (even ones which weren’t “real”, whatever that means).

Sea

Street lamp spreads light as a wave reaches shore: small, unseen; its sound is heard (sssshhhhhh…..). It lasts a second on the shore, but a lifetime in the heart.

The Rich Man

A rich young man approached Jee-whizz and asked, “Can a rich man get into heavens above?”

            Jee-whizz thought for a minute. “Yes,” he eventually replied, “as long as they pay a special type of tax called an indulgence.”

            “Super!” replied the young man, and rode off on his bicycle.

Later, when he was alone with his Apostrophes, Jee-whizz was confronted by Judas Carry-cot. “Master, surely it is as easy for a rich man to get into heaven as it is for a badger to ice-skate to the moon?”

            “Badgers can ice-skate to the moon,” replied Jee-whizz, “for is it not written that if you can dream it, you can do it?” The Apostrophes were full of wonder at this latest badger-related revelation. Jee-whizz continued, “It is as easy for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heavens above as it is for a monkey to climb a tree.”

            Simon, who was called Jeremy, then asked Jee-whizz, “Who is holier, master: a hairdresser or a Welsh dresser?”

            Jee-whizz laughed. “How much you still have to learn,” and the Apostrophes sat around feeling a bit thick, apart from Judas, who was sulking (again).

Thought for the Day

“It is the fate of all dining room tables to end up as the half-remembered remains of an unremarkable dream.”

Guru Quackami-Stabbingmusic (from “Sayings Which Credulous Westerners with Post-Colonial Guilt Disorder Will Swallow”)

Dreams make use of all the detritus of life, making the ordinary surreal. This morning’s half-remembered offerings consisted of a dining room table.

            It began life as an ordinary kitchen table, but microscopic magic bankers mysteriously transformed it into a fully-fledged dining room table; it was good enough to host quite a decent upper middle class dinner party which had forks and spoons for pudding.

            The angry indigenous inhabitants of the kitchen eventually overcame their tribal differences and led an uprising against the microscopic magic bankers, resulting in a fire in the dining room which incinerated the dining room table and spread to the rest of the ground floor, burning freely until the firemen came and put it out.

It is the fate of all dining room tables to end up as the half-remembered remains of an unremarkable dream.

(Hint: you may now nod sagely at the ethereal wisdom of the East which you understand but which is beyond the grasp of your less enlightened materialistic friends.)

Tomorrow’s Thought for the Day will be delivered by the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Mohamed Beard-Glasses, from the trenches outside St. Paul’s Cathedral.

Silence

On the Way to Work

Obadiah Circumflex reached towards the handle of the door (although it could have been the handle of a car boot or the handle of a baby’s pram) and opened it. He left via the front door (although it could have been the back door, the bathroom door or one of The Doors) and made his way towards the tube station (although it could have been a tube of toothpaste, a cathode-ray tube or a misspelt tuba).

Once there, he bought a ticket for his destination (although it could have been a ticket for his dog, a ticket to the moon or a ticket to ride) and boarded the next train on platform 2 (although it could have been platform soles, a platform for debate or platform 3).

The interior of tube trains always made Obadiah Circumflex feel slightly ill at ease, especially when he hadn’t had much sleep the night before. The rattling rails weaved their soporific magic on him, and he drifted off (although he could have drifted away, drifted into shark-infested waters or simply drifted through life).

He never woke up.

Demands

As I went to St. Paul’s for a little light tent theft, I couldn’t but help hear some protest chanting:

Chearleader: What do we want?

Sheep: ….general bleating noises amidst some mumbled confusion…

Ch: When do we want it?

Sh: …NOW?

Ch: What do we want?

Sh: ….general bleating noises amidst some mumbled confusion…

Ch: When do we want it?

Sh: We already said?

(Repeat until)

The demands of the Tent City Geniuses are quite complex. Having listened to their various demands, I have decided to provide a simplified guide.

1 ….er…?

2 Um…sort of….?

3 Well, more…..erm?

4 …………….?

5 ??????????

So, that’s all cleared up then, isn’t it?

Fergusthepoet now owns seven tents.

Magpies

One for a teaspoon (property of Johnny Marr).

Two also for a teaspoon (also property of Johnny Marr; same as the first).

Three for a Chihuahua, like a hippy rat.

Four for existential angst, wot we all have.

Five is for fireplaces (unlit, due to elfin safety).

Six is for a poster of Che Guevara (boo, hiss, grow up, ecksettera).

Seven for a chocolate chip cookie (burned).

Eight for a garden fence, owned by Kenneth Chinook-Helicopter.

Nine for Rameses II, one-time Pharaoh of Egypt.

Fergusthepoet cannot count to ten, which am just as well. Hmmmm.