#16 Nwando Ebizie: The Swan

Ah fuck, this is jazz, isn’t it?

We’ve already learned what magic can be created by the combination of Los Angeles and Newcastle-upon-Tyne but, guess what? Yorkshire by way of the Nigerian Igbo ethnicity creates magic that’s just that little bit better! There is but one question on everyone’s lips though:

Can a swan actually break your arm?

It’s all we know about swans, isn’t it? Well, we also know how the Queen eats them, because she’s a bloodthirsty hellion who feeds on the blood of the underclass, but after that we hear of what a dangerous threat they are, specifically to your upper limbs. They may be beautiful, they may be astonishingly graceful, but get too close and they will ‘break your arm’. Much like Nwando Ebizie? I couldn’t say, because when I get too close to her the response is a restraining order preventing me from even entering West Yorkshire for 20 months, which hardly feels in the spirit of things.

Is it true though? Well, children, call me Alex-F-P The Science… Person… as I will explain everything to you using logic* graphs** experiments*** and research****.

(*maybe)

(**nah, too much work)

(***experiments on a swan?? have some critical thinking, I beg of you*****)

(****this one BBC article from 2012)

(*****OK, so I did end up doing that just a little bit. For #science)

My extensive research brought me to Anthony Hensley, who… What? He worked for a company that provided swans to keep geese away? So that’s a thing? That’s a job I could have studied at school for?? Is it like an ice cream van, where you ride around asking if anyone fancies a nice swan?? Or did Mr Hensley drive around installing swan vending machines around his hometown of Des Plaines, just outside Chicago?? Sorry, I feel like I’m making light of this, the guy was killed by a swan, have some respect.

He was in a canoe, a swan charged him and capsized him and seemed to prevent him getting back to shore. That swan never spent a day in court, so we’ll never know whether it was swan murder or swan manslaughter, but it was definitely swan mischief leading to swan death.

When you’re down beside the lake you’re bound to hear
When you’re down beside the lake you’re bound to hear
When you’re down beside the lake you’re bound to hear somebody say
Careful now that swan could break your arm

old English proverb

Chris Perrins, Her Majesty’s Swan Warden (the fuck, man, these jobs…) obviously rushed to the swan’s defense, being part of the Big Swan superstructure, and explained how it’s likely this hit and run was committed by a male swan after Mr Hensley got too close to the swan’s family nest (“”It’s going to defend that territory”). But what about Cambridge’s “Legendary angry swan”?? He terrorised posh students throughout 2010, and was nicknamed Mr Asbo because – uuuuurgh – I hate this country and we need to execute the upper class. Was he also defending multiple nests?? Your ‘facts’ don’t add up, Perrins, what are you hiding??

So, what have we learned so far? That there is an international killer swan ring that manages to escape punishment because they are protected by order of the queen herself, and it’s more than likely that connection to this dangerous gang eventually lead to her violent death. They are the stone cold facts that we’ve already uncovered. But can they break your arm??

No, dude, swans are weak as shit. There isn’t a single recorded incident of a swan breaking someone’s arm. Their bones are like spaghetti sticks. Mate, try this yourself, it’s wild: you can just grab a swan’s wing and snap it in half like it’s an HB pencil. It takes, like, less than a minute to just snap both its wings and then both its legs, and then just stand there laughing uproariously at this ‘elegant creature’ that you were once so afraid of, right up until security removes you from Centre Parks.

Or are you too scared to do that? Who are you afraid of getting on the wrong side of?

This goes all the way up, man. All the way up.

BandCamp