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Professor Vere Gordon Childe

Childe had a colourful career in archaeology. Born 1872 in Australia, the son of a destitute prostitute and the Suffragen Bishop of Brisbane, he suffered a terrible accident during face-painting class at infant's school. This left him with the bright lime-green nose which was to handicap him through adult life.

After an undistinguished schooling, Childe published his first important book: Dental hygiene and flossing among the proto-hominids of East Anglia. The book sold 15 copies in hardback, and remains the standard work on the subject to this day.

On the strength of this, Childe obtained a post in the Department of Comparative Chiropody at the University of Whotawoppa (pop:293) as the result of a spelling mistake. Three weeks later, the university campus was destroyed by stampeding wombats, and Childe left Australia a broken man.

He was next heard of in Egypt, where he claimed to have located the tomb of the unknown pharaoh Luc-Az-Ade, after deciphering some heiroglyphics on a packet of Cheerios. Working long hours in the sweltering desert heat, Childe dug a 93-foot tunnel under the Valley of the Kings to expose the chamber.

Unfortunately, this turned out to be an underground tyre storage bay belonging to the Cairo & District Bus Company. A broken man, Childe was paraded in front of all his fellow archaeologists in disgrace. His buttons were snipped off, and he left Egypt with chants of "Why was he born so beautiful?" and "Should've gone to Specsavers" ringing in his ears.

Forced to accept menial jobs wherever he could, Childe ended up as an assistant dry-stone-waller in the Orkneys. Out for a walk one evening, he suddenly fell waist deep into a hole, and was trapped. His cries for help were ignored by the local people, who didn't like him because of his green nose. Childe only escaped twelve days later, after losing four stone in weight, all his loose change, and the keys of the Mondeo.

He wrote up this experience in a scientific paper, claiming to have discovered the Neolithic village of Skarra Brae. However, subsequent investigation revealed that what he had fallen into was just a hole. This failure left him a broken man. (Again.)

Childe returned to his native Australia, and spent his declining years in a small house - Dunexcavatin' - outside Perth. He never married, but was often seen with a six-foot stoker from San Francisco. Neighbours say that they would (That's enough archaeology -Admin)