Grim Reaper: Right, best get on. Next!
[Ivan the Terrible enters]
Grim Reaper: And you are?
Ivan the Terrible: Ivan the Terrible.
Grim Reaper: [mockingly] Ooh, Ivan the Terrible! What's so 'terrible' about you?
[Aside]
Grim Reaper: Hope it's not wind!
[Sniggers]
Ivan the Terrible: I once gouged out the eyes of two architects.
Grim Reaper: Oh yes? And what crime had they committed?
Ivan the Terrible: They had built me the most beautiful church the world had ever seen. St Basil's in Moscow, the one with the multicoloured onion domes. It's very nice, very pretty.
Grim Reaper: And you rewarded them by... gouging their eyes out?
Ivan the Terrible: Of course. To ensure that they never built anything better for anybody else.
Grim Reaper: Yeah, that is quite terrible actually.
Ivan the Terrible: I once had an Archbishop sewn into a bearskin, and hunted down and killed by wild dogs.
[laughs]
Grim Reaper: Yep, that's pretty terrible too.
Ivan the Terrible: I also had people buried alive, roasted on a spit, boiled in oil and my enemies' ribs pulled out by hot pincers.
Grim Reaper: Alright mate. Steady on - I've just had my lunch!
[Burps]
Ivan the Terrible: I also tipped scalding soup over my jester.
Grim Reaper: Just how bad were his jokes?
Ivan the Terrible: Put it this way, that was the only time he made me laugh. I then stabbed him to death.
