On this day in history, friends, we ask the age-old question: why are men? For we gather together today three incidents which took place on 3 August, all of which show male persons brought low by their own unwisdom. We begin in 1460, with King James II of Scotland.
James was besieging Roxburgh Castle, because it was in English hands, and was a big fan of artillery. In the words of Jeremy Beadle in his (not always reliable) 1979 book Today’s The Day!
But, while “inordinately proud” might be an invention, the event is confirmed in Robert Lindsay of Pitscottie’s The Historie and Cronicles of Scotland, 1436–1565:
Still, that only makes James a little rash, rather than out-and-out stupid. Enter stage left, then, a would-be robber in Denmark in 1978. We return to Mr Beadle for his sorry story:
Denmark’s bungling robber made his début in a street in Copenhagen. He burst into a goldsmith’s shop and demanded money from the girl behind the counter. She told him to go away. He insisted, but so did she, and so empty-handed off he went next door to the chemist’s. He told the chemist he had a gun in his pocket, and the chemist gave him more than £50 to keep it there. Success. The robber made good his escape and hailed a taxi — or at least a car with a light on the roof. It turned out to be a police car. No problem for a cool- headed crook, except as he popped his head in the window to give the uniformed ‘taxi-driver’ his destination, his description was broadcast over the radio. He was not only caught red-handed, but very red in the face!
I have not — as the BBC likes to say — been able to independently verify this story, but a version of it also appears in one of Stephen Pile’s ‘Heroic Failures’ books, which suggests that something like it must have happened.
Anyway, let’s go to 2006 in Serbia… for there we find 23-year-old (oh dear) Ratko Dankovic, who has been drinking (oh dear plus). He and his friends have been watching a sword-swallowing act on television, and Ratko informs said friends that that’s so easy anyone can do it.
Now, what do you imagine they said?
You may not be surprised to hear that you are right, and — according to Sam Jordison’s Annus Horribilis: a chronicle of comic mishaps — bet him £10 into the bargain…
One of his friends said later: ‘He stood in the corner of the room and was holding this stuff above his head and swallowing it with his head tilted back, and we all thought it was just part of the act. We had no idea he was really swallowing it… I thought he was just pretending and then hiding it in his pockets or something.” The astonished trio realized that something was wrong when Dankovic collapsed. They checked to see where the assorted metal items had gone and could not find them. ‘Then we realized he really had swallowed them.’ He was rushed to hospital, where an X-ray showed that he had swallowed a spoon, eight nails and an eight-inch carving knife. It took surgeons five hours to get everything out. But at least he won the bet.
We only have Sam’s word that this happened on 3 August, but it was reported in at least one outlet on 4th:
…and Ananova has what at least purports to be an x-ray of the man’s innards:
So, I can’t be certain how much of any of these stories is true, or of the dates (apart from the first one), but I can’t fault this quote from the last of our intrepid adventurers:
