Raws
Raws Paffett, 1st Viscount Paffett (23 september 1777, roughly 9 months after George Washington bent over to pick up a dropped coin while crossing the Delaware River) is a New Zealand popular hero, web developer, seafarer, explorer and man of mystery famous for his one-week colonization of the islands. The unprecedented celerity of this event earned him the nickname "Raws 'Exploding Trousers' Paffett", a popular expression which was later used to describe a strange chemical phenomenon that, according to witnesses, produces a visual effect evocative of this great moment in New Zealand history.
Raws Paffett's place and circumstances of birth were until recently a matter of heated debate among historians, with no less than four schools of thought holding radically different views on the subject; the first and most notable, led by Dr. Gunther Frager of the Stuttgart University of Anthropology and Getting Laid with Tribal Girls for Soap, relied entirely on archaeological findings and traces the event to Suttbeks, IL, where a pair of pristine, unworn - in both senses - pants were unearthed from the ruins of a 18th century drive-thru burger joint. Dr. Gareth Miller of Minnesota, after careful analysis of ancient Mayan codices, explained that the site was actually somewhere in Belgium, not because the codices were related to it in the slightest, but rather because it was a "pretty cool place" and he "totally owned that Panzer there, oh God, did you see that". Dr. Will-Benjamin Taht Smith of a place in the Pacific that nobody really bothers to remember, is known to have developed a third theory after deconstructive reading of the works of James Joyce, but was too stoned to offer further details. Recently, Dr. Jack Doolan of the University of Spain, Mexico, closed the interdisciplinary gap by showing in a famous conference that, as we can infer from the study of the C minor pentatonic scale, Raws Paffett was born simultaneously in all the above mentioned places, plus fourteen other locations scattered around the globe.
The discussion recently came to an end as Drs. Jack Doolan and Gareth Miller stood up in an international meeting and asked everyone else to "shut the fuck up, seriously".
Early life
As Doolan and Miller explain in their recent joint publication The Life and Times of Margaret Thatcher, Raws Paffett was born at the age of six in a number of different locations, each instance separated by exactly 69 seconds from the previous one. Although the ubiquity of this character makes establishing a reliable timeline a daunting task, Miller explained that "you'd be better off assuming that all historical events from 1777 an onwards are related to him to some degree", while Doolan added that "timelines were for pussies anyway".
Whatever the case, the first historical evidence of Raws' Paffet's actions was written by Royal Navy sailor Percy Butthurt. Butthurt, enlisted in HMS Bounty in 1789, tells of the following scene that took place on the ship during supper 28 April:
After another long, winding day, the men were somberly going through the first course, their noses deep into their plates, doing their best to avoid eye contact with anyone. Captain Bligh, clearly worried about the steady decline of morale in the last two months, walked up and down the room, keeping a stern eye out for anyone who would dare as much as mutter a single word. In a dark corner, a young sailor was loudly slurping his soup as if he was alone in the world. Nichols, the man sitting next to him, nudged him in the ribs and whispered a warning, which was unfortunately heard by Bligh. The Captain simply walked up to him and gave him a fiery gaze that would have burned a hole through the sides of a Ship of the Line. Nichols looked down again, already seeing the Gauntlet, when the boy simply stared back at Bligh, then told Nichols in a nonchalant way: "I say old bean, seems that girl there quite fancies you. I could pass her a note after supper if you want"
It was later discovered that the boy was no other than Raws Paffett. The event led to the famous Mutiny on the Bounty that very night.
According to Butthurt, this was far from the first sign of disrespect shown by Paffett towards authority in the Royal Navy: when Bligh took command of the ship and had the crew arranged for inspection, Paffett showed up in the right mood and attire, except not wearing any pants. Such an instance of insubordination had not been witnessed in centuries of service, and Bligh was allegedly unsure of how to react at all. After what seemed like an eternity of exchanging gazes, the Captain chose to ignore the matter, fearing that his reputation would be shattered if he as much as admitted having witnessed such behavior on a Royal Navy ship, even a small collier. Paffett remained pantless for the entire duration of the trip, with the crew of the vessel trying to avoid eye contact as instructed by Bligh.
The account mentions that Paffett did not actually participate in the mutiny itself. Instead, he walked up to a nearby window, said "this is my stop alright" and dove into the sea, swimming away at a speed of "about thirty knots and a bit".
Little is known of his activity in the following years, but extensive genealogy studies by Australian anthropologist Will Smith suggest that Van Diemen's Land was colonized by Paffett alone in 1803. Although evidence of this is at best anecdotal, a popular Australian folk song mentions the event. In it, a British officer scolds Paffett as he catches him making love to three female convicts that had been shipped to the island, saying that the women were "common thieves". According to the song, Paffett replied that he "didn't really need special thieves".
Oral tradition suggests that he left Australia after hearing news of the war in Europe, claiming that he had thought up a great joke about Napoleon and wanted to tell somebody. He then swam in the general direction of England.
Although the reasons for his trip remain disputed, the Royal Navy Archives do hold a number of documents that tell of Paffett's arrival into Portsmouth Harbor by mid 1803. The Admiralty lists his name as "pressed into service", but the attached letter, signed by Paffett himself, shows that he volunteered immediately after pressing into service the press gang itself. With this unprecedented entry into the Navy, Paffett quickly caught Horatio Nelson's eye, but returned it swiftly, as it was the Vice-Admiral's only working eye.
He was accepted aboard HMS Victory in october, where he started a strong but brief relationship with Nelson. In 1804 he was given his own command, HMS Temeraire, a ship-of-the-line listed in the records as a "second-rate with a nominal power of 98 guns plus one". The extra gun, Nelson wrote, was often carried around by Paffett in his arms and fired from the hip in a number of encounters with the French fleet.
Nelson described Paffett as a "most efficient, if unorthodox commanding officer". He soon became famous in Portsmouth Harbor for his motto "twice the beef, half the powder" when restocking Temeraire between actions. Eighteen farms in the south of England were needed to keep up with the demands of his breakfast, and he often, even during actions against the enemy, boarded friend and foe alike offering to trade valuables for fresh meat.
During the preparations for the Battle of Trafalgar, Paffett engaged in a similar endeavor and hailed HMS Victory for supplies. A hectic exchange of signals ensued, the last of which, according to a midshipman aboard Victory, was "and butter too, we ran out yesterday". With the French fleet almost within firing range, Nelson attempted to end the conversation by diverting everyone's attention to Paffett's lack of pants, and ordered the signal "England expects that every man will do his laundry" to be displayed atop the flagship's masts. The timely growling of Paffett's stomach, heard 500 yards upwind, caused the message to be relayed incorrectly.
