Cyril Wiggle's page & Cone Sanctuary

About Cyril Wiggle
The Cone Sanctuary
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ABOUT CYRIL WIGGLE

by TONY HOLKHAM (Cyril Wiggle's official biographer - for more information, go to Tony Holkham's website)

Cyril says he wants to be buried with the cat - when I reminded him he didn't have a cat, he said "I'm talking about next door's."

Cyril Wiggle is a happy enigma with a poor memory. As he gets older, he tends to forget people's names. Even this has compensations, he points out, because one of the first names he forgot was Julie Andrews. Someone keeps sending Cyril Annals of Amnesia. He sends it back with a note saying: "I don't remember ordering this." He hopes they'll send him a bill eventually so he can forget to pay it.

When you have read this introduction, you will feel you know Cyril Wiggle, even if you didn't, or at least you will feel you know someone like him, which may be the same thing. You will certainly know a lot of other people who know him.

Being a man of the world, Cyril is as comfortable in an Old Etonian tie (which he will often wear without a shirt, to make it more obvious) as he is in trainers and jeans. When invited on board a friend's boat for a trial run, he had asked if he should wear anything special, he was advised "just trainers" and so did just that. Nothing else, just trainers. A five foot six, balding, paunchy man does not cut a fine figure in just trainers. His embarrassed host offered Cyril the nearest thing which was to hand to cover his nakedness; it was an umbrella. He hasn't seen it since (the umbrella, that is).

If anyone has ever been to Cyril's flat, they will make a mental note never to lend him an umbrella, a watch, a pen, or anything else for that matter. Cyril has all these, but they never seem to be on his person when he actually needs them, and consequently he has to borrow one. It immediately becomes his own, and even if you watch it like a hawk and ask for it back once he has finished with it, he will look at you in that quizzical way as if you are trying to steal it from him. At his last garage sale, a box of assorted pens went for £23.80, and he managed to disposed of nearly a hundred umbrellas. Then again, and this is part of the contradictory nature of Cyril, he will always leave something behind at any place he visits. It may be a subconscious desire to say: "I was here." - a psychologist may know more about that than we do. Or it may be just that at that particular moment, Cyril doesn't want that item. It probably wasn't his, anyway.

If he doesn't leave an item, then he may leave some other reminder. It may be a blocked sink or a fictitious forwarding address, but it's much more likely to be something you come across quite a few days later (when you're looking for your pen), like a business card from a firm in Basingstoke which specialises in royal weddings or, worse still, tucked under your pillow an item of underwear which definitely does not fit your other half. On one occasion a few days after he had visited us and we felt obliged to recover with a trip to Spain, I rang my own phone number to check my messages and was greeted with: "Hi, this is Pat & Norman's answerphone..." Cyril has few equals in the practical joke field; it is said that he pioneered the stickers that have appeared in shop windows saying "It is illegal to smock on these premises" and some others that go way back to the 1960s. I haven't been able to persuade Cyril that smocking has died out everywhere but some remote corners of Wales and the Scilly Isles.

Cyril only ever tells the punch lines of jokes. He used to make them up, the punch lines, leaving others to fill in the body of the joke. That's why you'll have heard several different variations of some of them, penned by different people. But the punchlines, believe it or not, are all Cyril's. He repeats them often. Sometimes for an hour at a time. Imagine you're a reporter sent to cover a large gathering in the Town Hall - a joke-teller's convention where compulsive jokesters are telling all they know to whoever will listen. One subject offers a string of jokes and when they are exhausted, another subject comes up. People are in little groups, and spasmodic bursts of laughter explode from various points in the hall, marking the end of a joke. Your editor wants the best joke, so you muscle your way through the throng, listening out for the biggest laugh. You keep meeting individuals on their way to the bar, or the rest room, or to get some air to ease their aching ribs, and as they pass you, laughing, they repeat a punch line to you and slap you on the back, laughing even louder at your bemusement. Sometimes it's: "Oh come on, you know I've got two ducks." It's Cyril's favourite. Only trouble is, no one has ever come up with a satisfactory story to fill it in.

Cyril uses punchlines as conversation-stoppers. CSs (as he calls them) are another of his hobbies. People will be chatting intensely about the price of government bonds, or further education, and Cyril will become bored with it, and he will come out with something completely unrelated, like: "Yes, but where do they shop on a Sunday?" or "I see Prince Leopold has recovered from his prostate operation." And the conversation will stop as they look for the significance of what Cyril has said. By the time they realise there isn't any, they have lost the thread of the discussion and Cyril has blended quietly with another group talking intensely about some other equally boring subject.

He never tells you where he's going. He just tells you where he's going after that. And sure enough, when you get in touch with the place he's going after that, he has been there as he said he would, but he went there after he'd seen you, and was going on to the place he'd missed out. So you ask "Where's that, then?" and they tell you: "Oh I don't know, he didn't say, but after he's been there, he's going to so-and-so's." So you never actually catch up with him and have to be content to wait until he gets in touch with you. Which he does. Probably to say, erroneously, that you owe him money, or you never returned his socks. You don't hold your breath, though. It could be years.

So, if you know Cyril Wiggle, or someone like him, you will nod your head and say: "Yes, that's Cyril." We all know him in one form or another; a bit like the 'flu.

SO WHY IS Cyril Wiggle (or someone like him) VOTING FOR UKIP? Because only UKIP can get us out of the monster EU, put police on foot back on our streets, common sense into councils and taxes back where they belong.

One of Cyril's masterpieces is the cone sanctuary. Read on...

THE CONE SANCTUARY

Welcome to the site of the world's first Cone Sanctuary. It's about time, you might say. For too long, cones have been run over and left to die by the side of the road; left standing naked in the snow to freeze slowly to death; used and abused for purposes too hideous to think about.

Thankfully, all that is now about to end. We will offer ANY cone a peaceful resting place, to live out its days in tranquil and harmonious surroundings, no matter what its colour, condition, nationality or former status.

Founded in 2004 by Cyril Wiggle, The Cone Sanctuary is one of a kind.

How can we do this? Only with your help, of course. Please send your donations to The Cone Sanctuary. Or you can sponsor a specific cone, if you prefer. Just refer to New Arrival(s) below. A word of warning, however - once you start to sponsor a cone, you must continue to do so. Anything else would be exceedingly cruel.

NEW ARRIVAL(S)

Bateman. Found outside the entrance to a stately home in Berkshire, Bateman has obviously been used to better days. His silver fluorescent jacket in tatters, he was standing in 6 inches of oily water. After a good wash in warm water and a mild detergent, some of his old dignity is returning. Sponsor Bateman by contacting me.

Bloggs. A rare cone these days. She is yellow (no racism here!) and shorter than the average cone. She was found dented outside a hospital having spent several years signifying floor cleaning in progress. The dent was in the shape of a foot and she was obviously kicked out of the way by a doctor in a hurry. Ironic, or what?. Sponsor Bloggs by contacting me.

We are grateful to you for reading this. Chico Marx (I think) said: "Sanctuary very much" which, I think says it all, don't you?

Please feel free to contact me with any comments.

MORE ABOUT CYRIL WIGGLE?

If you would like to know more about Cyril Wiggle, you can read his Cynical Chronicles here or you can contact Tony Holkham, Cyril's official biographer, who is writing a book about Cyril at this very moment. The book is an eye-opener, an ear-bender and an arm-twister. Just like Cyril. Or you can contact Cyril Wiggle himself, though don't expect it to be an easy experience...

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