The Edmondson Blog

According to Robert Anton Wilson, the Committee For Surreal Investigation Of Claims Of The Normal (CSICON) claims that there is no such thing as normal, and there are no existing normal people (i.e. people existing in the average). For example, no one has 2.3 children.

Wilson offered $700,000 to anyone who could produce a normal sunset, an average Beethoven sonata, an ordinary Playmate of the Month, or any thing or event in space-time that qualifies as normal, average or ordinary.

The CSICON began with an overheard conversation in a pub regarding the strange weather. Another listener interjected, “Ah, Jaysus. I've never seen a boogerin’ normal day. And I never met a fookin’ average man neither.”

The founding charter states, “The average Canadian has one testicle, just like Adolf Hitler — or, more precisely, the average Canadian has 0.96 testicles, an even sadder plight than Hitler’s, if the average anything actually existed.”

Photos from the aftermath. Still, at least their mums love them (?)

Don’t think there are no crocodiles just because the water is calm.
Facts do not cease to exist just because they are being ignored.
We have no eternal allies and no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual and those interests it is our duty to follow.
The only statistics worth believing are those you falsify yourself.
For evil to triumph it is only necessary for good men to do nothing.
If you wait by the river long enough you will see the bodies of your enemies float by.
Good taste and humour are a contradiction in terms, like a chaste whore.
You learn most from mistakes that are made. The art is to do most of your learning from other peoples mistakes and not you own.
When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of he always declares it is his duty.
Success has always been a great liar.
It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place.
Our enemies’ opinion of us comes closer to the truth than our own.
No man of honour ever quite lives up to his code, any more than a moral man manages to avoid sin.
We find it easy to believe that praise is sincere: why should anyone lie in telling us the truth?
There are times when lying is the most sacred of duties.
[Talking about a competitor’s product:] It’s a dog – it howls. Ours is a tiger – it p-u-u-u-r-r-s.
I don’t say we should misbehave, but we should look as though we could.
Deadlines are the mothers of invention.
A stiff apology is a second insult.
A lie is an abomination unto the Lord and a very present help in trouble.
We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.
You raise your voice when you should reinforce your argument.
There is a time for departure even when there’s no certain place to go.
To the world you may be one person, but to one person you may be the world.
Most people have seen worse things in private than they pretend to be shocked at in public.
You are permitted in time of great danger to walk with the devil until you have crossed the bridge.

In a democracy, each citizen has a general moral duty to obey all the laws. He owes that duty to his fellow citizens, who obey laws they do not like, to his benefit. But this general duty cannot be an absolute duty, because even a society that is in principle, just, may produce unjust laws and policies and a man has duties other than his duties to the state.

A man must honour his duties to his conscience and he is entitled, in the end, to do what he judges to be right. If he decides that he must break the law, however, then he must submit to the judgement and punishment that the state imposes, in recognition of the fact that his duty to his fellow citizens was overwhelmed but not extinguished by his moral obligations.

There are a number of core tenets of civil disobedience:

• A valid cause.
• Large numbers, strong leadership, and organisation in support.
• All initiatives must be non-violent in all circumstances.
• We must generate victimless crimes. We must generate humour.
• Where there is price to paid for our actions, it is we, not members of the public, who must pay it.
• Our campaign must be totally inclusive involving the widest possible spectrum of support in its planning and execution.

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An IED (improvised explosive device) in Iraq.

An IED is a bomb constructed and deployed in ways other than in conventional military action. They may be partially comprised of conventional military explosives, such as an artillery round, attached to a detonating mechanism.

In the present Iraq War, IEDs have been used extensively against coalition forces and by the end of 2007 they have been responsible for approximately 40% of coalition deaths.

When I was 14, I hoped that one day I would have a girlfriend.

When I was 16 I got a girlfriend, but there was no passion, so I decided I needed a passionate girl with a zest for life.

At university I dated a passionate girl, but she was too emotional. Everything was an emergency; she was a drama queen, cried all the time and threatened suicide. So I decided I needed a girl with stability.

When I was 25 I found a very stable girl but she was boring. She was totally predictable and never got excited about anything. Life became so dull that I decided that I needed a girl with some excitement.

When I was 28 I found an exciting girl, but I couldn’t keep up with her. She rushed from one thing to another, never settling on anything. She did mad impetuous things and made me miserable as often as happy. She was great fun initially and very energetic, but directionless. So I decided to find a girl with some real ambition.

When I turned 31, I found a smart ambitious girl with her feet planted firmly on the ground and married her. She was so ambitious that she divorced me and took everything I owned.

I am now older and wiser, and am looking for a girl with big tits.

The word oxymoron comes from Greek: oxy, meaning sharp and moron meaning dull, and so is an oxymoron itself.

If you'll gather 'round me, children,
A story I will tell
'Bout Pretty Boy Floyd, an outlaw,
Oklahoma knew him well.

It was in the town of Shawnee,
A Saturday afternoon,
His wife beside him in his wagon
As into town they rode.

There a deputy sheriff approached him
In a manner rather rude,
Vulgar words of anger,
An' his wife she overheard.

Pretty Boy grabbed a log chain,
And the deputy grabbed his gun;
In the fight that followed
He laid that deputy down.

Then he took to the trees and timber
To live a life of shame;
Every crime in Oklahoma
Was added to his name.

But a many a starving farmer
The same old story told
How the outlaw paid their mortgage
And saved their little homes.

Others tell you 'bout a stranger
That come to beg a meal,
Underneath his napkin
Left a thousand dollar bill.

It was in Oklahoma City,
It was on a Christmas Day,
There was a whole car load of groceries
Come with a note to say:

Well, you say that I'm an outlaw,
You say that I'm a thief.
Here's a Christmas dinner
For the families on relief.

Yes, as through this world I've wandered
I've seen lots of funny men;
Some will rob you with a six-gun,
And some with a fountain pen.

And as through your life you travel,
Yes, as through your life you roam,
You won't never see an outlaw
Drive a family from their home.

Then take me disappearin' through the smoke rings of my mind, down the foggy ruins of time, far past the frozen leaves, the haunted, frightened trees, out to the windy beach, far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow.

Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free, silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands, with all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves, let me forget about today until tomorrow.

There is no greater burden in life than being recognised as having great potential.

We always overestimate the cost of doing the right thing and always underestimate the ultimate cost of doing the wrong thing.

You know you are getting old when you unzip your trousers, pull out your tie and pee in your pants.

Don’t get drunk with a dwarf with learning difficulties – it’s not big and it’s not clever.

Never flirt with ugly men if you have had more than three martinis (don’t ask me how I know this).

Continuous improvement requires something continuous to improve.

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck it’s probably a duck. (It might be a swan, but it’s probably a duck.)

The height of cleverness is to be able to conceal it.

Take care with fast cars and fast women, and never split a pair of fours at blackjack.

Steer clear of cheap women and cheap champagne, and never split a pair of fours at blackjack.

Never pass up an opportunity to use a toilet, never trust a fart and treat every erection as a thing of wonder – it might be the last one you ever see.

If you don’t watch the horizon you won’t be able to shoot the Indians before you are within bow and arrow range.

Better nouveau riche than no riche at all.

Better nouveau riche than vieux pauvre.

The fundamental defect of fathers is they want their children to be a credit to them.

If you must hold yourself up to your children, hold yourself up as an object lesson, not as an example.

If we don’t change direction now, we’ll end up where we are heading.

Here is an interesting new hobby - exploring old underground sewers.

The good folks at www.silentuk.com pass their time by opening up manholes, going down - the main sewers in larger towns are big enough to walk along - and having a good explore. Apart from probably not being able to go home on the bus afterwards, it sounds really interesting. Hmmm.

Gordon Brown has announced that the Government have adopted a new logo - a condom.

He explained that it more accurately reflected the government's political stance: it allows for inflation, halts production, destroys the next generation, protects a bunch of pricks and gives you a sense of security while you're being screwed.

Once upon a time a man appeared in a village and announced to the villagers that he would buy weasels for £10 each.

The villagers, seeing that there were lots of weasels around, went out to the woods and started catching them. The man bought thousands at £10 and, as supply started to diminish, the villagers stopped their effort.

He next announced that he would now buy weasels at £20 each.

This renewed the efforts of the villagers and they started catching weasels again.

Soon the supply diminished even further and people started going back to their farms.

The offer increased to £25 each and the supply of weasels became so scarce it was an effort to even find a weasels, let alone catch it!

The man now announced that he would buy weasels at £50 each! However, since he had to go abroad on some business, his assistant would buy on his behalf.

In the absence of the man, the assistant told the villagers: "Look at all these weasels in the big cage that the man has already collected. I will sell them to you at £35 and when the man returns from abroad, you can sell them to him for £50 each."

The villagers rounded up all their savings and bought all the weasels for £700 billion.

Strange as it may seem they never saw the man or his assistant again, only lots and lots of weasels!

Now you have a better understanding of how the UK banks bailout plan will work.

Abdabs: extremely perturbed. “Sharon walked in when I woz in a clinch wiv Tracy an’ she ’ad the screamin’ abdabs.”
All fur coat and no knickers: of a woman, all superficial appearance and no real substance beneath. (Derog.)
Cancel: administrative body of a town. “Darren, weev ad annuvva letter from the cancel.”
Cort a panda: a big hamburger (smaller than an arf panda)
Drekkun?: do you consider? “Which dog drekkun’ll win the next race?”
Efty: considerable. “Ere, Trace, this credit card bill’s a bit efty.”
Ejog: a small, spiky animal.
Eyebrow: cultured, intellectual.
Fatcha: Margaret, British Prime Minister 1979 - 1990.
Fong: skimpy undergarment.
Gwon: a term of encouragement. “Gwon Darren, eat ya granny’s cabbage, it’ll do yer good.”
Haitch: letter of the alphabet between G and I.
Iffy: dubious. “Ere, Trace, I fink this bread pudding you made last munf’s a bit iffy.”
Int: an indirect suggestion. “I gave Darren a sort of int that it was time to wash iz feet.”
Ja: do you, did you. “Ja like me new airdo, Sharon.”
Kaff: modestly priced eating establishment open during the day.
Minger: an unattractive person (usually female).
Narra: lacking breadth, with little margin. “Mum wannid to come rand but changed er mind. That was a narra escape.”
Nartamean?: have you understood what I have said? (Sometimes used as janartamean?) “Getting Darren at on bail woz tricky. Nartamean?”
Oaf: a solemn declaration of truth or commitment.
Pacific: specific.
Plammans: a pub lunch usually made up of cheese and bread.
Rand: a number of drinks purchased for a group.
Ran deer: in this locally. “There ain’t much call for it ran deer.
Reddat no drawers: colourful millinery insight.
Rocky nors shit: an extremely rare commodity. “English brikkies ran deer (q.v.) are as rare as rocky nors shit.”
Roofless: without compassion.
Seevin: very angry. “I woz seevin when I urd wot ’e sed.”
Tan ass: a modern terraced house.
Top evvy: an appreciative description of a woman with a plentiful bosom. “Ere look at that, Darren, she’s well top evvy.”
Ump: to be disappointed or angry over the outcome of a particular circumstance. “When Tracy woz sacked from ’er job at the co-op, she got the ump.”
Vacher: a document which can be exchanged for goods or services. “I got a vacher to get in cheap at Forp Ark.”
Wanned up: tense. “I’m all wanned up at the moment.”
Wawazat?: I beg your pardon.

Ealdgyth Swan-Neck, also known as Edith Swan-neck or Edith the Fair, lived with King Harold II of England for 20 years as his common-law wife. The church did not recognise this relationship, considering Harold to be officially married to Edith of Wessex, the widow of the Welsh ruler Gruffydd ap Llywelyn, who Harold had defeated in battle.

When Harold was killed at the Battle of Hastings, the Normans horrifically mutilated the body and would not hand it over for burial, even though his mother offered to pay Harold’s weight in gold for the body.

Ealdgyth walked through the carnage of the battlefield and identified Harold’s body by markings on his chest known only to her. It was because of this identification that Harold was given a Christian burial by the monks at Waltham. Although official history tells that the markings were tattoos spelling Ealdgyth and England, it has been speculated that the markings known only to her were actually love-bites from a passionate night of love-making on the eve of the battle.

One of Harold and Ealdgyth’s daughters, Gytha Haraldsdatter (i.e. Harold’s daughter) married the Grand Duke Of Kiev, Vladimir Monomakh. Phillippa of Hainault, the consort of Edward III, was a direct descendant of Vladimir and Gytha, and thus ironically Harold’s blood line re-entered the English royal line. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II is the 29th great-granddaughter of King Harold II and Ealdgyth Swan-Neck.

Time flies like an arrow;
Fruit flies like a banana.
JERemiah 33 3: “Call to me and I will answer you.”
“Infamy! Infamy! They’ve all got it in for me!”
“Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here, this is the War Room.”
Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay!
Alas! I am very sorry to say
That ninety lives have been taken away
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember’d for a very long time.

’Twas about seven o’clock at night,
And the wind it blew with all its might,
And the rain came pouring down,
And the dark clouds seem’d to frown,
And the Demon of the air seem’d to say:
“I’ll blow down the Bridge of Tay.”
Simple Simon met a pie-man going to the fair.
Said Simple Simon to the pie-man
“What have you got there?”
Said the pie-man unto Simon
“Pies you twit.”

I asked for wisdom,
And God gave me problems to solve.

I asked for prosperity,
And God gave me knowledge and the strength to work.

I asked for courage,
And God gave me troubled people to help.

I asked for favours,
And God gave me opportunities.

I received nothing I wanted.

I received everything I needed.

My prayer had been answered.

As a 400 ton roof section was being lifted into place by a 267 feet high crane at the Miller Park Stadium in Milwaukee in July 1999 the collapse of the crane was caught on a video camera. Three construction workers were killed.

The shock caused by the crane's collapse was severe enough to be measured on the nearby seismograph at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

The two loud reports about halfway through the video are the sound of bolts snapping as the crane is overloaded.

APL China

Probably the most expensive cargo damage since the invention of the ubiquitous freight container was sustained by the ship APL China in the Pacific Ocean during Typhoon Babs in October 1998. About 400 containers were lost overboard, with another 1000 or so damaged. Losses exceeded $100,000,000.

Hanjin Pennsylvania

In November 2002 the newly built Hanjin Pennsylvania was fully loaded with containers. On 11th November one of the containers was seen to be on fire. The ship had a major cargo of fireworks and over the next four days there was a series of spectacular explosions that threw over 200 containers overboard and damaged over half of those left aboard.

Rule 1: Stand amongst fat people.

Rule 2: Food of the same colour has the same calories: for example, pistachio ice cream has the same calories as broccoli*.

Admit it, you'd feel a right prick with a numberplate like this!

Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought --
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.

Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

Jabberwocky was written by Lewis Carroll and included in his book Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There published in 1872. The poem was a parody designed to show how not to write a poem.

Many of the words in the poem are of Carroll's own invention. In the book, Humpty Dumpty gives some definitions and later Carroll gave some more but maintained that he did not know what some of the words meant. The words chortled and galumphing have entered the English language.

Bandersnatch: A swift moving creature with snapping jaws, capable of extending its neck.
Borogove: A thin shabby-looking bird with its feathers sticking out all round, something like a live mop.
Brillig: Four o'clock in the afternoon: the time when you begin broiling things for dinner.
Burbled: Possibly a mixture of bleat, murmur, and warble.
Chortled: Combination of chuckle and snort.
Frabjous:Probably a blend of fair, fabulous, and joyous .
Frumious: Combination of fuming and furious.
Galumphing: Perhaps a blend of gallop and triumphant. Used to describe a way of trotting down hill, while keeping one foot further back than the other.
Gimble: To make holes as does a gimlet.
Gyre: To go round and round although Carroll also wrote that it meant to scratch like a dog.
Jubjub: A desperate bird that lives in perpetual passion.
Manxome: Fearsome; the word is of unknown origin.
Mimsy: Combination of miserable and flimsy.
Mome: Possibly short for from home, meaning that the raths had lost their way.
Outgrabe (past tense; present tense outgribe): Something between bellowing and whistling, with a kind of sneeze in the middle.
Rath: A sort of green pig.
Slithy: Combination of slimy and lithe.
Tove: A combination of a badger, a lizard, and a corkscrew. They are very curious looking creatures which make their nests under sundials and eat only cheese. Humpty Dumpty explains that gyre and gimble, i.e. rotate and bore, is in reference to the toves being partly corkscrew.
Tulgey: Thick, dense, dark.
Uffish: A state of mind when the voice is gruffish, the manner roughish, and the temper huffish.
Wabe: The grass plot around a sundial. It is called a wabe because it goes a long way before it, and a long way behind it, and a long way beyond it on each side.

Did you enjoy the authentic country flavour of your home-delivered pizza? Here is the special technique.

The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found.
Music with dinner is an insult both to the cook and the violinist.
Never eat more than you can lift.
I like rice. Rice is great if you’re hungry and want 2000 of something.
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what's for lunch.
My doctor told me to stop having intimate dinners for four. Unless there are three other people present.
I've been on a diet for two weeks and all I’ve lost is two weeks.
At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely.

Text of letter sent by the British Ambassador in Moscow to the Foreign Secretary in London, 6th April 1943:

My Dear Reggie

In these dark days man tends to look for little shafts of light that spill from Heaven. My days are probably darker than yours and I need, my God I do, all the light I can get. But I am a decent fellow and I do not want to be mean and selfish about what little brightness is shed upon me from time to time. So I propose to share with you a tiny flash that has illuminated my sombre life and tell you that God has given me a new Turkish colleague whose card tells me that he is called Mustapha Kunt.

We all feel like that, Reggie, now and then, especially when spring is upon us, but few of us would care to put it on our cards. It takes a Turk to do that.

Sir Archibald Clerk-Kerr
H. M. Ambassador

*107th Psalm: They that go down to the sea in ships and do business in great waters; these see the works of the Lord and His wonders in the deep.

Well, captain, it's like this, you see, ummm, I was, errrr...

On the last day of January, 2006 and in thick fog the 500 ft long MV Twin Star collided with TWO other ships near the Peruvian port of Callau. She sustained extensive damage and broke in two. All bar one of the 22 crew were rescued. She was later salvaged and broken up.

Well, Wing Commander, it's, ummm, let me explain, errr...

A proud B-1B Lancer made a wheels-up belly landing at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean on 9 May 2006, skidding down the runway for 7,500 feet. The four aircrew escaped without injury.

The U.S. Air Force won't say why crew landed the plane with its landing gear retracted.

Sick and tired of scraping ice off your car windows with a CD case or a credit card? Stop whingeing! It could be worse - here are a few pics taking in Versoix, Switzerland, on the banks of Lake Geneva.

SIR - I have a few spare minutes at lunchtime and want to buy glue, electrical tape and a hairbrush. Where do I go, now that Woolies has closed?
SIR - Since your correspondent asks where to buy glue, electrical tape and a hairbrush, I suggest he solves the problem by changing his hairstyle.

Eeper Weeper, chimbley sweeper,
Had a wife but couldn’t keeper.
Had annuvva, didn’t luvva,
Up the chimbley he did shuvva.

+++++

There was a man called Corkscrew Dick
Because he had a corkscrew prick.
He searched the world from front to back
To find a girl with a corkscrew crack.
But when he found her, he fell down dead,
The lady’s parts had a left hand thread*.
Hogamus, higamus
Men are polygamous;
Higamus, hogamus
Women, monogamous.

+++++

Little fly upon the wall
Ain’t you got no home at all?
Ain’t you got no mum or dad?
You bastard!

Yokomo: (rhyming) = Yoko Ono Moment = Oh no! Moment. That very lonely moment when you are the very first person to realise that some large and extremely unpleasant disaster is about to come to pass. Made infinitely worse when you realise it is your fault and very soon everybody will realise it as such.

Are you lonesome tonight?
Are your corsets too tight?
Are your brassières all tattered and torn?
Did you put on your vest
With the hole in the chest
Or was it too bad to be worn?

Are your stockings all crinkled?
Your shoes worn and thin?
Are your knickers held up with a big safety pin?
Are you frightened to yawn
’Cos your teeth are all gawn?
Well! That’s why you’re lonesome tonight!

Antifun gal (n.): a female prude.
Bozone (n.): the aura surrounding stupid people that stops sensibleness penetrating. There is a danger that a large group of such people can generate a bozone layer.
Caterpallor (n.): the colour you turn after finding half a grub in the fruit you’re eating. (Very old joke: What's worse than finding a maggot in the apple you're eating? Half a maggot! Ha Ha.)
Doltergeist (n.): a spirit that haunts stupid places.
Dopeler effect (n.): the tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.
Eunouch (n.): the pain of castration.
Foreploy (n.): any misrepresentation about yourself made to increase the likelihood of having sex.
Glibido (v.): all talk and no action.
Hipatitis (n.): terminal coolness.
Ignoranus (n.): a person who’s both stupid and an arsehole.
Inoculatte (v.): to take coffee intravenously when you are running late.
Karmageddon (n.): it’s like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it’s like, a serious bummer.
Necronancy (n.): sexual attraction to dead gay men.
Osteopornosis (n.): a degenerate disease.
Reintarnation (n.): being reborn as a hillbilly.
Sarchasm (n.): the gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn’t get it.
Writer’s tramp (n.): who an author visits for casual sex.

A seven-year-old boy was at the centre of a Newcastle courtroom drama when he challenged a court order over who should have custody of him.

The boy had a history of being beaten by his parents and the judge initially awarded custody to his aunt, in keeping with child custody law and regulations requiring that family unity be maintained to the degree possible.

The boy surprised the court when he proclaimed that his aunt beat him more than his parents and he adamantly refused to live with her.

When the judge then suggested that he lived with his grandparents, the boy cried out that they also beat him.

After considering the remainder of the immediate family and learning that domestic violence was apparently a way of life among them, the judge took the unprecedented step of allowing the boy to propose who should have custody of him

After two recesses to check legal references and to confer with child welfare officials, the judge granted temporary custody to Sunderland Football Club, whom the boy firmly believes are incapable of beating anyone.

Wherein it is related how that paragon of womanly virtue, young Polly Nomial (our heroine) is accosted by that notorious villain Curly Pi (π), and factored (oh horror!!!)

Once upon a time (1/t) pretty little Polly Nomial was strolling across a field of vectors when she came to the boundary of a singularly large matrix. Now Polly was convergent, and her mother had made it an absolute condition that she must never enter such an array without her brackets on. Polly, however, who had changed her variables that morning and was feeling particularly badly behaved, ignored this condition on the basis that it was insufficient and made her way in amongst the complex elements. Rows and columns closed in on her from all sides.

Tangents approached her surface. She became tensor and tensor. Quite suddenly two branches of a hyperbola touched her at a single point. She oscillated violently, lost all sense of directrix, and went completely divergent. As she tripped over a square root that was protruding from the erf and plunged headlong down a steep gradient. When she rounded off once more, she found herself inverted, apparently alone, in a non-Euclidean space.

She was being watched, however. That smooth operator, Curly Pi, was lurking inner product. As his eyes devoured her curvilinear coordinates, a singular expression crossed his face. He wondered, “Was she still convergent?” He decided to integrate properly at once.

Hearing a common fraction behind her, Polly rotated and saw Curly Pi approaching with his power series extrapolated. She could see at once by his degenerate conic and dissipative that he was bent on no good.

“Arcsinh," she gasped.

“Ho, ho,” he said, “What a symmetric little asymptote you have I can see you angles have lots of secs.”

“Oh sir,” she protested, “Keep away from me I haven’t got my brackets on.”

“Calm yourself, my dear,” said our suave operator, “Your fears are purely imaginary.”

“I, I,” she thought, “Perhaps he's not normal but homologous.”

“What order are you?” the brute demanded.

“Seventeen,” replied Polly.

Curly leered “I suppose you've never been operated on.”

“Of course not,” Polly replied quite properly, “I’m absolutely convergent.”

“Come, come,” said Curly, “Let's off to a decimal place I know and I’ll take you to the limit.”

“Never,” gasped Polly.

“Abscissa,” he swore, using the vilest oath he knew. His patience was gone. Coshing her over the coefficient with a log until she was powerless, Curly removed her discontinuities.

He stared at her significant places, and began smoothing out her points of inflection. Poor Polly. The algorithmic method was now her only hope. She felt his digits tending to her asymptotic limit. Her convergence would soon be gone forever. There was no mercy, for Curly was a heavyside operator. Curly’s radius squared itself; Polly’s loci quivered. He integrated by parts. He integrated by partial fractions. He cofactored. The complex beast even went all the way around and did a contour integration. What an indignity – to be multiply connected on her first integration. Curly went on operating until he completely satisfied her hypothesis, then he exponentiated and became completely orthogonal.

When Polly got home that night, her mother noticed that she was no longer piecewise continuous, but had been truncated in several places But it was to late to differentiate now.

As the months went by, Polly’s denominator increased monotonically. Finally she generated a small but pathological function which left surds all over the place and drove Polly to deviation.

The moral of our sad story is this: If you want to keep your expressions convergent, never allow them a single degree of freedom.

£20 = score
£25 = pony
£50 = bull’s eye
£100 = ton
£500 = monkey
£1,000 = gorilla or grand

ALL SORTS OF THINGS, places and creatures that we believed would last for ever, have vanished – trams, tosheroons* and Constantinople.

*tosheroon = half a crown coin = 2/6 = 12½pence.

“’Ere, Dad, bung us a pony.”

British coins have always had a series of traditional inscriptions, or legends, upon them, either surrounding the monarch’s head or on the obverse.

The present legend is: ELIZABETH II D.G. REG F.D.

ELIZABETH II, of course, refers to Her Majesty, the Queen.

D.G. stands for Dei Gratia, By the Grace of God.

REG is an abbreviation of Regina, Queen. (A king will have REX.)

F.D. stands for Fidei Defensor, Defender of the Faith. Henry VIII had originally been a very devout Catholic and had written a book, The Defence of the Seven Sacraments to counter the accusations of heresy against the Catholic Church by Martin Luther. For this Pope Leo X bestowed on Henry the title of Fidei Defensor. The English church eventually broke away from Rome, partly in an attempt to counter false doctrines and malpractices, and so considered itself to be the true church. Consequently, Henry VIII continued with the title.

The legends have changed over the years. For example, the legend on a 1918 penny was: GEORGIUS V DEI GRA BRITT OMN REX FID DEF IND IMP.

BRITT OMN stands for Britanniarum Omnium, King of all the Britons.

IND IMP stands for Indiae Imperator, Emperor of India.

The expression a curate's egg originally meant something that is partly good and partly bad, but as a result is entirely spoiled.

The phrase derives from a cartoon in Punch in November 1895, picturing a timid-looking curate taking breakfast with his bishop.

The bishop says, "I'm afraid you've got a bad egg, Mr Jones."

The curate replies, "Oh, no, my Lord, I assure you that parts of it are excellent!"

The original sense of the expression referred to an objective understanding of the depicted scenario: since an egg that is even partly bad is effectively inedible, the supposedly excellent parts do not redeem it.

Interestingly, modern usage has tended to change this to mean something having a mix of good and bad qualities. This more modern sense of the expression reflects the point of view the curate is trying to argue: that the excellent parts compensate enough for the bad parts to render complaints – or at least declaring something a total loss – inappropriate.

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I ain't got no home, ain't got no shoes,
Ain't got no money, ain't got no class,
Ain't got no skirts, ain't got no sweater,
Ain't got no perfume, ain't got no bed,
Ain't got no mind.

Ain't got no mother, ain't got no culture,
Ain't got no friends, ain't got no schoolin',
Ain't got no love, ain't got no name,
Ain't got no ticket, ain't got no token,
Ain't got no God.

And what have I got?
Why am I alive anyway?
Yeah, what have I got?
Nobody can take away?

Got my hair. Got my head.
Got my brains. Got my ears.
Got my eyes. Got my nose.
Got my mouth. I got my smile.

I got my tongue. Got my chin.
Got my neck. Got my boobies.
Got my heart. Got my soul.
Got my back. I got my sex.

I got my arms, got my hands, got my fingers,
Got my legs, got my feet, got my toes,
Got my liver, got my blood.

I've got life,
I've got my freedom.
I've got life.
I've got life and I am gonna keep it.
I've got life and nobody's gonna take it away.
I've got life!