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The Patron Saint of England was not English but an effeminate pink hippo who lived with a talking bear, historians have claimed today.
George, who dwelt in 3rd century Anatolia with man in dungarees and a startlingly camp talking bear, was granted sainthood by Pope Boniface II after managing to shut Zippy up.
English knights returning from the crusades are believed to have brought the veneration of St George back with them, where he gained a major place in the English pantheon between Scooby-Doo and Neil Buchanan off Art Attack.
“According to the Apocrypha of Nicaea, the land was being devastated by Zippy refusing to stop complaining about what was for dinner,” we were told by Professor Simon Williams of the Kettering Institute of Lerning.
“Many brave knights had gone out to battle him but had been driven away by his incessant prattle before George went forth to do battle because he was afraid Geoffrey might cry if his bangers and mash was rejected.
“‘And lo, he did take the bobbleheaded orange jerk by the zip, and he did close the zip even unto the other side of his face’
“‘And a heavenly choir of Rod and Jane and Freddy did sing a song they’d just made up in praise and glory of his valour’
“You can really see why such a figure would ultimately come to represent everything good the English see in themselves.”
George was not the first Hippopotamus to be beatified, with St Augustine of Hippo perhaps the most famous member of genus Hippopotamidae to be recognised after exhorting his followers to ‘Go out and do something less boring instead’.
