Nick's Blog
Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious Blog
19/8/2009 @ 23:08
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Here's a practical joke you might like to play at some point. All it would cost you is the air fare to Boston, USA, and you would have to blag your way into Yale University but once there, you could have fun at the expense of the world's top academics.
To begin, write a letter to Yale University's library, asking to see their copy of The Voynich Manuscript. To familiarise yourself with that book, check out this link...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Voynich_manuscript
In short, the Voynich Manuscript is a 14th Century book written in a totally unknown language which has baffled the world's top cryptographers and linguists to this day. Now once Yale have agreed to your viewing of it, and you have your plane ticket, just go there, pick up the book and start reading it out loud. Just memorise and make up some convincing 14th century alchemy stuff...
"And yea, by the reaping of thy mistletoe at the vernal equinox, thy will gain the powers of a Tawny Owl and thy will be able to fly, and turn thine head around thus, and see into the night. But ye be warned...too much misteltoe will gain the powers of a gnat"
When you get challenged by the academics about how you can read the manuscript, make up something like "I don't know how I did it, I just see the words clearly in my mind". They'll think you're some kind of savant with supernatural powers. Maybe you'll get a TV series made about you? And who's to say you're making it all up when no one can read what it actually means? Just because you claim you can read the Voynich Manuscript doesn't mean that they can show you some Sanskritt and you'll be able to read that...you're not a universal translator, you can just read the Voynich Manuscript OK.
And when you've got everyone hooked, claim the last page reads "Other Penguin books you might like to read are..."
