Linz

An average citizen of Linz: smoking a fag, sending text messages, and scratching BMWs with their arse.

Linz is in Austria, which is in Europe, which is in the Northern Hemisphere, which is part of the Earth, which is part of our solar system, which is part of the Milky Way. The Milky Way doesn't know where it is in the great scheme of things, so there's no point asking.

History

Linz is a small city on the river Danube in Austria. Wellington boots were invented there by Wolfgang Wellington (pronounced Volfgang Vellingtun) in 1268, because living on a river is really quite damp. The citizens of Linz found an unexpected bonus in the use of Wellington boots as they frequently caught fish in them whilst swimming across the river to visit their hopelessly incontinent grandmothers on the "Urfahr" side (meaning the other side of the wet bed bit in the middle).

It was not until 1357 that Berthold von Brigder invented the technique of crossing the Danube via a bridge, although his name has been constantly ignored by writers of modern history as he often spelt his own name as von Bridge, von Brigitte Bardot, or The Queen of Sheba. Berthold died in 1366 of athlete's foot. He is celebrated in Linz with a concrete statue that can be viewed at the back of "Willi's Sausage-Stand" (between the fire exit and the outside toilet) which is famous for being the only statue of a man with two left hands and two right feet.

Industry

Your friendly "Toilet-Door Poster Man" at work.

Linz is a world-renowned producer of steel, and produces enough steel per day to build the Eiffel Tower twice over. As the French had no wish to be inundated with thousands of copies of the Eiffel Tower littering France, the Linz VöestAlpine steel company directed its energies to supplying enough steel for 30,000 cars per day, which is roughly equivalent to 7,524,000 Zimmer frames, or 95,000,000 door handles.

The VöestAlpine company was founded in 1941 and was originally called the “Hermann Göring Works”, which was a blatant lie as Hermann never did a day’s work in his life. Hermann preferred to spend his 40-hours-a-week spare time drinking flatulence-inducing beer and flying WWI kites in his back garden - the flatulence being the reason his wife forced him out of the living room and into the back garden. The lessons learned during WWII have not been forgotten of course, as steel workers are offered a wide range of options which are very simple - either they work or they die of starvation. If they know what's good for them they willingly work 9 days of alternating shifts, which is followed by 3 days of sleeping in the foetal position and dreaming about their mothers feeding them hot milk from two over-large Aryan mammary glands.

Over the last few years the job market has grown to encompass various new trades such as the "Toilet-Door Poster Man" who will come out at any time of day or night to professionally pin a poster of your choice to the toilet door. These highly-trained installers are hand-picked from the ranks of the hopelessly unemployable and prefer to be paid in cigarettes, red wine and (if they're lucky) oral sex with a willing female (or male if need be) of the household.

Tourism

Tourists hiding in the ÖBBs "Ze Magikal Mystery Tours" waste bins.

Tourists are very welcome in Linz, as long as they surrender their wallets at the Austrian border and agree to a full body search by a sweating border guard with athlete's foot and terminal halitosis. Tourists are an integral part of the economy of Linz, as without them citizens would have to revert to selling hand-made ceramic portraits of Russian soldiers performing the act of sex with their grandmothers to passing Germans.

Travelling to and around Linz is easy by train (or tram), although there are differing classes of travel. First and second class are comparable to any European country, but there is a third choice known by locals as "Ze Magikal Mystery Tours". This involves hiding yourself under festering food products in a portable waste bin (to be found at the back of any supermarket) and simply waiting to be taken away to an unknown destination. Warning: The bins are not collected every day, so it is suggested that you take a flask of hot tea with you and a Tupperware box filled with meat-paste sandwiches while you wait. The ÖBB (Upper-Austrian Train Service) provides this service completely free of charge.

A female 'Linzerin' doing the "Whoops-a-Daisy Bed Dance".

English is spoken by most "Linzers", although visitors must not expect total fluency and will often hear sentences like:

• You want bouncy-bouncy?
• I am loving your brown hairs.
• Please be explaining the cricket/baseball rules one last time.

Culture

Culture (Kultur) is very important to the inhabitants of Linz, as they will (albeit reluctantly) give money to street musicians on the “Landstrasse” (Main Street), but have been known to stand silently around a blind saxophone player for hours - knowing full well that he has absolutely no idea they are there, and thinks he is playing to an empty street.

There are various houses of culture in Linz that supply a never-ending collage of musical delights such as: The "Brucknerhaus", which was ingeniously designed to look like a large rusting chocolate cake, and features concerts by famous dead composers in steel coffins, or "The Posthof", which presents international one-legged acts that can balance a clown on a stick whilst making the famous Apfel Strudel in a frying pan (with no eggs) and the "Linz Fest" (Linz Festival) that annually attempts to bore its audience to an untimely death - thereby lessening the chronic housing problems of Linz.

If a male happens to ingratiate himself with a member of the opposite sex and is asked back to the lucky lady's abode, he will be expected to take part in the traditional "Whoops-a-Daisy Bed Dance", which involves bouncing on a bed in time to the music of a jolly Gypsy quartet of folk musicians that every female "Linzerin" keeps locked up in a broom cupboard under the stairs.

2009 will see Linz being crowned European Capital of Haute couture, or Culture Capital, if you like. As none of the projected buildings will be finished on time, visitors are expected to bring wellington boots, a luminous yellow jacket, a white regulation hard hat and a wheelbarrow with them, and answer to the name of "Paddy" or "Seamus O'Tool".

Food

Compulsory sign outside any Linz restaurant serving foreign food.

What Linz does not offer in the way of food: No HP Brown Sauce, Fish & Chips, Steak & Kidney Pies, Cheese & Onion crisps (let’s be honest here - it doesn’t have any crisps at all), Coleman’s Mustard, Tetley’s Bitter Beer, PG Tips tea, Chicken Tikka Masala (ditto crisps) Pork Scratchings or Sarson’s Malt Vinegar. The "Celtic Foodstore" on the Main Square does offer these items, but it is only open from 7:15 am to 8:30 am on the first Sunday of the year. This lack of English delicacies could leave any British visitor a tad depressed (if not actually suicidal) after a night out on the town. The Linz council firmly states that any foodstuffs containing starch, fatty or saturated acids, bacteria, rejected donor organs, methane, urine, dog faeces, viruses or parasites are strictly forbidden by Austrian law.

Linz does offer a wide range of edible foodstuffs however, such as “Leberkase” (Liver-cheese which has absolutely no liver or cheese in it) “Kasekrainer” (a large meat sausage with cheese that closely resembles a fully erect horse’s penis) and a “Bosna” (onions, curry powder, tomato ketchup and two freshly-fried index fingers of a Bosnian asylum-seeker in a bread roll). For dessert Linz is proud of its very own “Linzer Torte” (Linzer cake) which sufferers from hyper-active saliva glands will truly enjoy, as it will instantly soak up 35% of their body fluids.

Beer

Lots of it.

• The Chelsea Pub serves over 61,000 different beers and 25,000 whiskies, but they are permanently locked in glass-fronted cabinets. Their handles are wired to mains electricity. (Linz electricity operates at 220 volts.)
• The Unfassbar has beer and a free football table. This is to lure customers in so they can be fleeced and forced to talk Austrian. Disobeying this rule means being locked in the toilet until your lungs are stained yellow by urine fumes.

Crime

There are no muggers on the streets of Linz. This is because a Linz mugger would rather spend an hour or two with you in a coffee house discussing how much money you have, how much you could give him, and if your children are doing well in school. Car theft is almost unheard of in Linz, because if someone actually steals a car it means that they are obviously not Austrian, possibly blind (or blind drunk), are from Yugoslavia, or have an insatiable urge to lick the leather-bound gear stick of a BMW or a Mercedes.

The only real crimes in Linz (which are punishable by instant death, a mild fine or a slap on the wrist) is crossing the street when the sign says "Don't Walk", or sending young boys to school in winter without a woollen scarf wrapped around their testicles.

The Linz police are are the only force in the whole of Europe to prefer water pistols instead of real guns. This is because plastic bags are cheaper, so when they strap one over a suspect's head and submerge him in a bath full of water they can refill their pistols at the same time.

How to confuse a citizen of Linz

• Speak to them in perfect German.
• Say that cream cakes bring you out in a rash, and should have a Health Warning.
• Deny all knowledge of WWII by saying that your school didn’t think it was important enough to be included in the curriculum.
• Ask them which song from "The Sound of Music" they like the best. (Although the film is massively popular, absolutely nobody in Austria has ever seen it).
• Answer all questions with "Yes" or "No" (say yes when you mean no, and no when you mean yes).

Facts about Linz

A photo of Mrs. Schicklgrüber at a "Sex for Singles" rally in Linz.

• If you take a photo of Linz in outer space it looks smaller than a pinhead.
• Mrs. Adolf Schicklgrüber (née Hitler) thought of Linz as her home town, and lived there in total secrecy after WWII until her death from athlete's foot in 1987. During her time in hiding she was twice elected "Mr. Austria", started the first "Sex for Singles" movement, and later became a part-time counsellor for left-handed people who had difficulties masturbating with a milk bottle.
• If you see a one-legged pensioner hopping around Linz you can be quite sure that he was in WWII, and probably shot your uncle Frank.
• Most citizens of Linz totally believe that London is constantly foggy and has warm beer, which is absolutely true because Sherlock Holmes said so.
• 97% of Linzers were born in the "Landesfrauen Klinik" (Country Women's clinic) which was recently torn down to stem the rising birth rate.
• Linz has its own TV channel called "LT1", which is the prime cause of suicides amongst the educated but unemployed.
• Walking through the "Altstadt" (Old Town) at 2 in the morning is the best way to experience what being stabbed, beaten and urinated on really feels like.
• Linz changed to flexi-time in 2003 to ease the crush of traffic jams, so everybody started work two hours earlier, which means Linz still has traffic jams, but earlier in the morning.
• Linz does not bury its dead, because pensioners just refuse to die. This has seriously affected the local job market as the time-honoured profession of grave-digging is (literally) a dying art.