Gordon Brown Eats Children's Pets

This just in from a reliable source:

Brown reached into the cage of the school hamster, picked it up and placed it in his mouth.

"We all thought it was a joke," Said Mrs Gwiggis, a witness to the incident whose child attends the school, "but then he started chewing and we realised he was actually eating it"

Luddite Adventures

I have to have a phone. But if I have to have one, I want one that does not beep, whistle, ullulate, squeek like a cicada or play the opening bars of any piece of popular classical music.

I have the (mis)fortune to live near a string of antique and junk shops. I argue that I needed a real phone. I had a nasty cheapie plastic touchtone that was getting extremely difficult lately. Horrid piece of junk, the buttons would only work one time in three. When you picked up the receiver you had to push the clicker down several times to get the buttons to work. I needed a new one so I looked in the phone store for something I could afford and that would not offend my sensibilities too much.

And those two criteria proved far beyond the capacities of the electonics manufacturers of our times. You should have seen the confused look on the poor young fellow's face when I asked for a rotary dial phone. Bit like the time I scoured Toronto shops for a clock you have to wind up. (Imagine the fun I had trying to explain the notion of 'winding a clock' to some of the semi-literate savages they keep behind counters in posh Bloor street shops.)

"You know," I said to the poor blighter, "like your grandmother used to have...in the olden days..." just then his shirt pocked started playing the opening bars of Mozart's Marriage of Figaro and we both were looking confused.

The poor kid tried to make me get a cell phone. Just think about that for a second. I'll type it again...

He. Tried. To. Make

Me.

get a

cellphone.

It's OK, I'm sure he's fine now, after a bit of rest in a darkened room.

I have long thought that today's cell phones were designed by people who grew up wanting to be Captain Kirk. Come on! Don't those things look EXACTLY like a communicator? You can even get one with a speaker so you don't have to hold it up to your ear, but can hold it in front of you like Kirk did...you know it's true. Nokia's even got a line of phones/blackberries that they call "Communicators."

Anyway, the upshot was that once again, I found what I wanted in a junk shop.

(I hate to imagine what are the larger implications of that fact.)

I brought it home today and am very pleased. Now my 1936 Underwood typewriter has something to keep it company. It has been such a long time since I used a rotary dial telephone that I had forgotten how nice it was.

In fact, much nicer than I remembered. When I was a kid, the R.D. phones were the late model plastic ones and the quality of construction of most mechanical devices was sailing downhill on a rocket-powered bobsled.

This phone is metal, weighs around six pounds so I'll know just what to swing when the burglar breaks in to steal all my expensive electronics. The action of the dial has a lovely smooth machined feel to it that you can't find in these terrible times of i-pods and other horrible little tweaking and beeping plastic boxes.

And yes. It works. It has been adapted to have one of those standard phone jack thingies and I just plugged it in. The only problem I have is that after such a long time since I used a rotary dial phone, without realizing it, I have memorized most of the phone numbers I use not from a string of digits but from the pattern of the key pad.

* ~ * ~ *

It's not even that I hate the modern world so much. I use CD's and telephones. I have a blog after all!

I just argue that the aesthetics are all wrong. I don't think I ever wanted to live on the set of a late '60' science fiction show and if they were to give it a moment's thought, neither would anyone else.

I mean, really, which seems more homey to you? Where would you rather wake up tomorrow morning?



or

Time to Waste; Books to Procrastinate

Some of the books I still intend to write before I die, barring premature senility, blindness or a miraculous and permanent resurgence of monsticism in the Church, include:


The Granola Gourmet:
Hippie Cuisine for Embittered 40-Something postmoderns

Remember the brown bread, eggs and rice of your carefree, shoe-free childhood? Pining for mom's homemade yogurt? The perfect gift book for the perpetually angry Gen-exer schlepping in a dead end office job far far from the tarpaper treehouse cabin of his Hornby Island homeland.

Bonus! ~ order now and get a free CD featuring the crashing of the waves on the beach at Tribune Bay accompanied by the soothing chants of the yoga retreatants at Deerhearts meditation sanctuary. ~ 40 years of exploring the energy of the heart ray. Pefect for those long Toronto February streetcar commutes. Order now!

Choice

So, picture this scenario:

Your boss calls you up and offers you a choice of three things you can do:

1) Single-handedly picket the Paris mosques wearing a sign that has a picture of Mohammed with a bomb turban.

2) Get shoved feet first through a wood chipper.

3) Write a response to the CCCB's pastoral letter on the government's embryo research regulations.

hmmmmm


toughie...

Simple on How to Talk to Oriental Desert Savages

c.1957
In a brief series of columns, Mr. Simple visits with General Sir Frederick Nidgett, who after an illustrious civil service career has been dispatched to darkest Araby to engage the might of the Empire with the Imam of Todi, whose effective armed forces consist of 35 Syrian-trained (in those days it meant ludicriously badly trained) Todi Scouts, equipped with muzzle-loading arquebuses. Todi is situated on the other side of the Great Jebel Snakhbar, a desert of formidable proportions riddled with savages.

Nidgett of Arabia

I have just seen a copy of a leaflet prepared by Capt. J.Birdbath, of the Psychological Warfare Branch of Gen. Nidgett's headquarters. Seven million copies have already been dropped on the territory of the Imam of Todi.

Capt. Birdbath, a noted lecturer and Arabist in civil life, believes he has found the answer to criticisms that our propaganda is out of date and that we have lost touch with the Arabs of today.

A rough translation reads:

"Sons of the Desert! Hearken to the voice of Gen. Sir Frederick Nidgett, G.C.V.O., T.D. Terror of the Universe, before whom the waves of the sea retire and the stars of heaven bow down! Though he come with an irresistible host, attended by powerful dijinns, Nidgett is your friend!

The accursed Imam of Todi, grown old in evil, has betrayed you, and is even now preparing to hand over his dominions to the demons of Iblis, in return for a futher supply of houris and false oil-share certificates.

Drive out the infidel Imam and welcome Nidgett with wine and corn, with ivory and ebony and cedarwood, with gold and porphyry and with feasting and dancing and joyful shouts. And remember to hand in your flintlocks to the nearest Field Security Section.

Fear not the magic birds which bring these messages. Like the giant Roc of Socotra, which carried Sinbad of old, they are now in the service of the wise enchanter Nidgett. If you heed his words, they will do you no manner of harm. Tremble and obey."

* ~ * ~ *

In a later colum, Mr. Simple happily reports that the Imam had fled to the Jebel Snakhbar during the night and taken refuge in the remote fastnesses of the Bojd.

Gen. Nidgett declared "Operation Backache" a "Cracking good show!"