THE BOOK OF BRILLIANT HOAXES

By Simon Rose, published by Virgin Books 1995

In 1998 we received a call to the Spanner office from a client who said how much they had enjoyed the piece on 'Spannering' in a book they were reading about the worlds greatest hoaxers.

We have to admit we knew nothing about it and promptly tracked a copy down. Here is the piece in its full glory.

We are on page 270 and for those looking for a good Compendium of mayhem, mischief and mirth, it's not a bad read.

Spannering

In Britain, a company called Spanner In The Works will bring an element of chaos to parties and functions. Usually posing as waiters, they will offer guests canapés such as jelly baby and radish on a cocktail stick or perhaps carrot and banana, which they claim to be a Tahitian delicacy often served by Egon Ronay at his cocktail parties.

One of them will pretend to be a wine waiter, getting himself steadily more sozzled as the evening wears on and becoming ever ruder to the diners, examining their thinning hair with a large magnifying glass and taking a mini vacuum-cleaner to the dandruff on their jackets, before collapsing and having to be dragged out of the room. Their waitress will flirt outrageously with the men, making assignations in the car park that are kept, not by her, but aby the poor chap's giggling mates.

One of them usually dons the garb of a maintenance man and will disrupt the dinner by working clumsily on chandeliers, fuse boxes or by drilling holes with an electric drill. He might slip and shove the drill bit through an 'old master' to the guests' horror. Or he could tear down a carefully-prepared fake fuse box that will explode and leave him twitching on the floor.

Frank Carson has declared them "the funniest thing since me" but then perhaps you need to see 'Spannering' in action to truly appreciate their craft.