Marmoset (n)

A tiny monkey, about the size of a fork, overgrown finger, or twenty centimetre ruler. Due to the size of the marmoset’s body, their brains are quite small and not all that brilliant. One prime example of their low brain capacity, is when marmosets often mistake their staple diet of insects for animal droppings but are still unable to tell the difference in taste. In 1997, Sydney resident Emma Turner returned from a holiday in South America and unknowingly brought back a marmoset in her luggage. Managing to make it through customs, she discovered the animal upon unpacking at home, and due to her bad eyesight thought her cat Whiskers must have had a kitten while she was away. Unfortunately Whiskers found and devoured the marmoset, and in turn died from jungle fever. A small community television station in South America recently launched a reality series named “Marmoset’s Got Talent” in which marmosets would perform tricks (such as leaping through flaming hoops, or drinking milk and squirting it out their nose) in order to win money. Unfortunately due to the animal’s small brain capacity, the majority of the marmosets ended up racing off stage and pulling out the audiences’ hairs. This created a ratings smash that even Ben Elton would be envious of.  The biggest cause of death to marmosets is being sat on by larger animals. The second is turnip chips, which explode when mixed with the marmoset’s stomach acid.

Face (n; v)

The part of your body that identifies yourself as being you, unless you’re a dog, an identical twin or a dalek. The face allows one to display expressions such as happiness, anger, or more complex confused emotions such as ‘I’m sure I can smell a strong whiff of cow manure but I’m not sure where it’s coming from. Is it on my shoe? Best scrape it on some grass, or maybe this rug’.  The faces of attendees at the Academy Awards on Monday were covered in drool after the majority of the crowd fell asleep in the middle of the 269-hour ceremony. Thankfully, their take-home packs included some diamond-encrusted KFC refresher towelettes for a quick, and sparkling clean. In 2002 ten-year-old Atlanta resident Timmy Hooper overheard his father talking about something having ‘face value’. Having struggled to earn enough pocket money by busking in front of his mother with marionettes and mowing the lawn with scissors, Timmy decided that his face would have enough value to earn him at least 200 yen and therefore buy that Nintendo 64 he’d wanted for ages. So he stole his father’s credit card and ordered some flesh-eating bacteria on the Internet from South America, in the vain hope that this might help remove his face. US customs seized the bacteria on arrival into the country and Timmy is now serving a life sentence - with a face - behind bars. Thankfully for Timmy this result was better than the person who took the suggestion ‘turn that frown upside down’ literally. Charlie Sheen’s face has often been likened to that of a hippopotamus, although the main difference here is that hippos get paid less but are much funnier. Last year a turnip chip was discovered with a likeness to the face of MacGyver actor Richard Dean Anderson. The chip sold on EBay for US$125 but it is widely agreed would have made more had it also contained a mullet.