TROY

AN ANCIENT POET, who claimed Helen of Troy was an adulterous slut, wound up being blinded for his troubles.

Stesichorus, a master of Greek Lyric verse, is said to have blamed her adultery for the Trojan War in one of his works

Helen, who, unfortunately for him, was part-god, is said to have blinded him in return.

“Being part-god, she naturally had a very bad temper,” said Christian Knowall, whose new history of Troy places the ancient city in Los Angeles and has it inhabited by transsexual neanderthals. “There was far more diversity in the bronze age than is generally appreciated,” he explained.

“Anyway, to recover his vision, Stesichorus had to recant with another poem, and he achieved this by explaining that, actually, a phantom of Helen went to Troy, while Helen herself went to Egypt. She was happy with that, it seems. Gods are like that, you know.”