Ship of Fools celebrates 10 years online with 'Christian classic'

The self-styled magazine of Christian unrest, Ship of Fools, will celebrate 10 years online on 1st April by making a cult classic booklet available for download for the first time.

In his 'Knowledge for the Growing Boy', first published in 1941, Sid G Hedges asserts in all earnestness, among other things, that wet dreams are the result of too much supper, too many clothes on the bed and 'sleeping on the back'.

The booklet, is long out of print but has turned into something of a cult classic,.

Hedges suggests a fail safe way to prevent nocturnal emissions - thread a piece of string through a cotton-reel and tie the reel round your waist.

"If you chance roll from your side it will press into your back and wake you up," suggests Hedges, a regular contributor to magazines like Boys' Own Paper, Chums and Scout. He died in 1974.

"I was given the booklet when I was 12," admits Ship of Fools co-editor Steve Goddard. "My family wondered why I began rummaging around in the sewing box."

The booklet provides an intriguing insight into the friction between contemporary culture of the war-time era and the church and is "inadvertently hilarious", says Ship of Fools editor Simon Jenkins.

"It's a discussion we are still having today," he adds, "though, thankfully, the scenery has changed."

The London-based webzine attracts more than 150,000 unique visitors a month accessing more than 2.5 million pages. Iconoclastic and debunking but also committed to the ultimate value of faith, Ship of Fools attracts readers more interested in searching questions than simplistic answers.

Following a major project called the Laugh Judgment, discussing humour and offence, journalist Julie Burchill said of Ship of Fools: "If one must choose a modern symbol of what is so good about Britain I would choose this website."

To download the booklet from April 1st go to www.shipoffools.com,