Dick Andrysiak

Scottish/Polish polymath Ryszard Aloysius Henteaser Abercrombie Blrfl Flermalerma MacAndrysiak CBE (February 29, 1956 —), more commonly known as Dick Andrysiak, is a magnanimous know-it-all that has invaded the living rooms of Britons via the airwaves for nearly four decades, though few know his name. At the time of this writing, he is the head "boffin" responsible for fact-checking the answers to the questions on the long-running BBC quiz show QI.

Early life and education

Born in a hedgerow on the outskirts of Inchinnan, Renfrewshire to Polish refugees still fleeing the Nazis despite the war ending more than a decade prior, Andrysiak was raised in abject poverty as his parents were professional liars and made a meager living writing scripts for Ministerial and party political broadcasts on Radio 4 in nearby Glasgow. A former neighbor of a teenaged Gerry Rafferty, at age eight he was kidnapped by gypsies and smuggled onto a southbound train, and upon reaching London he lived as a street urchin and pickpocket, sending stolen wallets back to his parents when he could. Whilst busking on Fleet Street in 1968, Andrysiak's patter impressed drunken Australian media mogul Rupert Murdoch who took him in and raised him as his own son, sending him away to boarding schools and being emotionally unavailable. Andrysiak took advantage of this situation by becoming an exceptional scholar, progressing through the British educational system and completing several degrees at both University of Oxford and University of Cambridge, mostly in law and other esoteric subjects. Professors are said to remember him as a student from his notorious impersonation of Vivian Stanshall. Andrysiak and national treasure Stephen Fry were off and on roommates between 1979 and 1981, and he would on occasion help Fry change the lightbulbs in the Cambridge Footlights. Rumours once circulated that Andrysiak and Fry briefly engaged in dalliances, which Fry has vigorously and repeatedly denied.

Career

Andrysiak's discipline in boarding schools led him to develop a distaste for his parents' careers as repugnant liars, so he could not be persuaded to help Murdoch spread lies by writing copy for News Corp or to take a position as a barrister or solicitor. From his brief exposure to Footlights he was attracted to a career in light entertainment, and having a Polish sense of humour in Britain proved to be an asset. Following a chance meeting on a golf course with manager and producer Denis O'Brien, he found work writing the liner notes to George Harrison's 1982 album Gone Troppo. Through his association with Harrison, Andrysiak met Monty Python member Eric Idle who found him work as an assistant script editor for the film Monty Python's The Meaning of Life (1983). On the set of that film he met American/Canadian actor Matt Frewer who introduced him to director Rocky Morton, and Andrysiak was hired to ghostwrite the scripts for the character Max Headroom in a series for Channel 4 television. Andrysiak had a gift for churning out vaguely coherent non sequiturs, and is now regarded as a key driver in Max Headroom's worldwide success throughout the mid-1980s. Whilst at Channel 4 Andrysiak met comedy writer Clive Anderson, and was hired to come up with material for Whose Line Is It Anyway? which he did in an uncredited capacity until the last series ended in 1999, at which time he and Anderson had a falling out. From there Andrysiak disappeared for a few years, during which he reverted to his childhood lifestyle of homelessness, petty theft and crapulence. In 2003 he was rediscovered in a car park when he asked producer John Lloyd if he could bum a fag, leading to his gig on Lloyd's new project QI, and reuniting him with his college roomie Stephen Fry. As Fry disapproved of the hire and asked Lloyd to reconsider, Lloyd explained that he could not find anyone qualified to work as cheaply as Andrysiak, and an agreement was reached where Fry and Andrysiak were kept apart during the show's production. Andrysiak's rise in prominence behind the camera is believed to have contributed to Fry's departure as host of the programme in 2016.

Philanthropy

Andrysiak was provided with a trust fund by Murdoch when he was a child, and lived off its dividends early in his adult life. Tech company investments by his stockbrokers during the dot-com bubble followed by his impulsive decision to sell all those shares upon entering his "sabbatical" in 1999 made him a multi-millionaire, and he has been a supporter of various charities over the years. He repatriated his parents to Kraków and provided them with a comfortable retirement, making substantial financial gifts to the city which led to the renaming of their train bridge as the "MacAndrysiak Memorial Train Bridge". The signage commemorating this event has since been destroyed by teenage vandals. Diagnosed with Borderline Narcissistic Personality Disorder in 2007, he established the charitable Foundation for Telling Me How Great I Am to help fund the promotion of this condition. Andrysiak is also responsible for mailing large bank notes to random addresses throughout the UK during Christmastime, typically accompanied by a handwritten note reading "With love, Stephen Fry". For these random acts of kindness in furtherance of Stephen Fry being considered a national treasure to the British people, and on the recommendation of 'Sir' Bob Geldof, Andrysiak received an appointment as Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II in a ceremony at Balmoral Castle in 2012. Fry was in New Zealand at the time working with director Peter Jackson on one of the Hobbit films and was unable to attend.

Personal Life

Having led a life that qualifies as a typical "rags to riches, then back to rags slumming it on a lark, returning shortly thereafter to riches" story, Andrysiak is no stranger to chaos and turbulence. Married and divorced sixteen times, he is believed to be the father of at least twenty children, one of whom is rumored to be YouTuber Bobby Fingers. Having learned from Murdoch to always insist on prenuptial agreements, Andrysiak has managed to hold on to his wealth and left all of his ex-wives none the richer. According to reports, once during a mescaline binge attending a Psychic TV event, Andrysiak married performer Genesis P-Orridge by mistake, and had the unconsummated marriage annulled following a bemusing but brief honeymoon. A recovering alcoholic and drug addict, he was known to frequent the Carshalton pub crawl with his friend and boxing coach, actor Oliver Reed. One famous incident involving an argument with comedian Billy Connolly over the authenticity of Anthony Newley's performance as the Artful Dodger left Andrysiak with a broken nose and black eyes, and the two have never spoken since. An avid football supporter, he is a fan of Celtic and has a financial interest in the Scottish Football League. Author of 27 books published under different pseudonyms, as well as 19 unpublished titles written in 6 different languages, Andrysiak claims to be a conduit for "automatic writing" as defined by Edgar Cayce, as all of his work was composed whilst he was asleep or otherwise unconscious. In his spare time he enjoys arson, building scale model replicas of scenes depicted in Herman Melville's Moby Dick, collecting pre-WWII Argentinian postage stamps, crashing art gallery exhibit openings by impersonating Banksy, and making amateur pornographic videos for his OnlyFans channel.

LieQuest 2024: A Lie Quest of Mythologically Discordian Proportions