Short stick genius
A friend of mine used to work as a boat builder in rural Berkshire. The owner of the business was a pompous old fart with a walking cane, panama hat and braying voice who'd waltz in every monday, swan around for about three hours generally annoying everybody there, and then bugger off for another week.

During every visit he'd disappear into the back office with the manager for an hour or so to go over the accounts, leaving his hat & cane on the desk outside. Each time, my mate would quickly take his cane, remove the rubber stopper from the bottom, then take it over to the lathe and skim a millimetre or so off the end. Pop the stopper back on the end, back on the desk, and not a word said.

You may think that somebody wouldn't notice a millimetre missing off the end of their walking stick; and indeed you would be quite correct. However, as he did this pretty much every week without fail over the next couple of years, the owner's monday visits gradually evolved into episodes of high visual comedy as his cane slowly got shorter and shorter.

He was walking leaning over at an angle of about 20 degrees before one day he began taking his cane into the meetings with him, casting suspicious glares around the workshop before he went in...
(Ali Bongo 9000 Ali Bongo 9000, Mon 9 May 2005, 12:06, Reply)