Oxbridge Institute
Department of History
Professor Baxter Smalls, Time Traveling Documentarian
 
 
Frequently Asked Questions, with Baxter Smalls
Q - Is Lolli his own grandpa?
 
B- Lolli is not, in fact, his own grandpa, the paternity test bore that out.  He is in fact his own dirty Uncle and frankly an embarrassment to his family, yet not to himself, paradoxically. No self-esteem issues vis-a-vis Lolli, though there certainly should be. Wonderful painterly eye behind the camera, can’t fault him there.
 
Q - Do you get jet lag, or rather time lag?  
 
B- Well, I find if you just do the right toe curling exercises you can avoid both jet and time lag.  Frustration at the ticket station or with near light speed navigation is another matter, unsolvable by any toe movements.
 
Q - How much luggage can you take?  Overhead or under seat?
 
B- I bring the necessities packed with care. Lolli brings the camera and his own personal baggage.
 
Q - What kind of snacks do you take?
 
B- I’ve discovered nutritional bars. I rather like them. I suppose I could say I like nutritional bars, but nutritional bars don’t really like me, based on that incident in the bush a few hundred years back.  I like making s’mores, especially during the Age of Enlightenment, good s’more making time that. Also during the Black Death, wonderful!
 
Q - How do mustaches weather time travel?
 
B - I’ve never traveled with them, I don’t imagine a mustache would do too well unless it was attached to a face, preferably a mans face. Though, during the Neolithic Age it could be a man or a women, believe me. For my part, the mustache has weathered time quite well, its all in the grooming.
 
Q - Does it smell better in the past?
 
B - Only if you are traveling to a time just before someone does something smelly or I’d imagine if you travel to a time before you had to inhale next to an insurance salesmen. Course they go back a long way, first smelly insurance salesman I encountered was an Early Minoan in Juktas at Knossos. Terrible B.O. and tried to sell me insurance on a terracotta votive believed to have a healing function.  Awful.  And there was a certain rest stop that shall remain nameless…certainly not my “happy place.”
 
Q - What are a few inaccuracies in our history books?
 
B - A few?!!  (He laughs until he begins coughing and clutching his chest.) I think I’ll need some water.
 
Q - Does your exploration into the past effect our present, or is our present already altered by your presence in the past?
 
B – My present is only effected by the future and current time.  For instance if I alter my present it would be an unknown… correct?  How can I alter that of which I have no knowledge.  Interestingly enough when I travel into the future I can’t feel my own tongue, which made for a quite a depressing story culminating at a Singaporian Brothel with Lolli selling tickets to a fictitious Monkey brawl… Good Lord!
 
Q - Wouldn’t it be cool if you gave Jesus a high five!
 
B - People are always asking me that.  Extraordinary!  They say what would Jesus do?  To which I say what wouldn’t he do? I mean look at him.  Ever play cricket with him?  Complete “ball hog,” even playing with the children.
 
Q - Will you turn into a molten pile of human goo if you come into contact with yourself?
 
B – No, but I did walk into myself shagging my first wife… Self esteem issues abound.  
  
Q - Are you related to Derek Smalls?
 
B – Depends on Wendell’s (Daddy Dearest) whereabouts during a certain boxing day bender in 1948.
 
Q - Is it legal to sleep with someone from the past?  Or is that a question for Lolli?
 
B - Lolli, you might want to take this one…
 
Q - Baxter, do you, in anyway feel that your journeys into history cause people of the past to fear the future?
 
B -Yes, especially when they’ve seen Lolli or myself in a state of undress.  I am fascinated with the paradoxical nature of my job, and I don’t even know it.  Strange isn’t it all?
 
Q - What is the most virulent disease you have caught?
 
B – Well when you give them a rare form of orchid upon your arrival and they give you a rare form of gonnoreah, I suppose that’s free trade… right Lolli?
 
Q - Well, what is the most virulent disease you have spread"
 
B - Knowledge (he smiles) think about it….
 
Q - Is it true you pitched to Babe Ruth?
 
A - Yes.  But he wasn’t pleased when the ball kept hitting the plate so to speak.  Never quite understood how he got so famous… the man never scored one run in cricket.  
 
Q - Is it true you caught one of Babe Ruth's home runs?
 
A – No just  a rumor, But Lolli did get kicked out of the 1923 World Series for making a “Home Run” in the NY Yankees locker room.
 
Q - How do you travel back in time?
 
A - I use my “Gift”.
 
Q - We've heard you actually met the man who invented the toilet.  Is that right?
 
A – Actually I met him through a friend and I gave him the idea for the liftable seat.  After his wife beat him silly for spittle on the rim issues.
 
Q - What's the longest you've ever been away, in the past?
 
A - Two weeks during the French revolution… rather like a live performance of Les Miserbles… that’s another story.
 
Q - Can you also visit the future?
 
A - I’ll tell you when I get there.
 
Q - Are you fluent in a lot of languages?
 
A - I am able to understand every language… through my “Gift” of course.
 
Q - Where do you go on vacation?
 
A - I like to do a bit of yachting near the end of the last ice age.  I have some Neanderthal friends that really know how to cook up a good pig… so to speak.
 
Q - Are you married?  What does your wife think of all this?
 
A - Lolli should answer that.
 
Q - How much is your book?
 
A - In what currency?
 
Q - Where can I buy the book?
 
A - Currently we are sold out, but if you are on the site next Tuesday at 4:15 p.m. GMT.  I will tell you when you can look again for the book.  It is in demand you know.
 
Q - What's the worst "trip" you've taken?
 
A – Woodstock 1969… GOOD LORD!