Noah’s head for business let him down.

After Noah had let all the animals off the ark, he realised that though he had great business sense (having floated a loan while the rest of the world was in liquidation) he had not properly planned for his retirement.

He was feeling more than a little bored one day, when he heard God’s familiar voice:”Noah! I want you to go out and chop down two thousand trees.”

Noah enjoyed the exercise, and soon had the trees all trimmed and stacked. “Now, what do you want me to do Lord?” he asked.

“I want you to dress the logs and use them to build another twenty-five decks inside the ark, Noah.”

When he had completed this major undertaking, Noah said: “Everything’s ready Lord, but I don’t know what you’ve got in mind.”

The Lord told him: “Noah, you will need to fill the ark completely with water, before I give you my last request!”

Noah found a way to collect and syphon all that water into the ark, and then asked what else he had to do.

“Fill it with carp, Noah,” said the Lord.

As Noah brought the last lot of carp in through the top window of his vessel, he suddenly realised that he and God were on a winner. But unfortunately his timing let him down, as millennia passed before people began to discover the benefits of his most effective but least acknowledged achievement: a multi-level carp-ark!