The first appearance of a smug cloud occurred during the 1986 Icelandic boil lancing championship.
Eilífr Goðrúnarson was defending his 17 year title when a literally unknown young contender with limited experience in boil lancing purporting to hail from the Isle of Man unexpectedly battled his way heroically through the qualifying heats to land himself a place in the final round against the much loved local hero Goðrúnarson.
Courageously he pierced the championship grade boils with great vigour and drained away enough puss to gain a lead on his opponent and looked to have the competition in the bag. This caused great unrest in the watching crowd, the majority of who were loyal followers of the reigning champ who viewed his dominance of the sport as a symbol of national pride. If Eilífr was to be defeated, which looked almost certain, the entire country would be forced into a social and economic depression of devastating proportions.
However, in the last moments of the final bout, Goðrúnarson harpooned a boil which unexpectedly harboured a festering puss sac so large the puncturing of which resulted in an eruption of fetid juice so large that sunlight was blocked for several hours.
Needless to say, the title was retained. Unfortunately the combined relief of the triumphant masses who witnessed this event manifested itself in a smug cloud 14 storeys high and 9 route-master buses long. The initial fallout of the cloud devastated an area the size of a low budget Barrett housing estate. To this day two out every four children are born with inoperable larynx defects which cause them to sound like scary pop-freak Björk.
All content copyright Tom Crowley
