Attention to detail

Come hither Joe Kerr Jr. Now. That is not a request. What's this?

It's an envelope.

I know full well that it's an envelope, my perceptual apparatus is fully functioning, or do you wish to question its representational fidelity? What I am referring to – as you damn well know - is the salient feature of this particular envelope, the so-called quality that marks it out for attention more so than your average run-of-the-mill envelope, is that its label is quite breathtakingly and impolitely non-aligned - not at right angles - to the edges of the envelope, to the point of belligerent impertinence. What if the client had seen it?

Since it's not addressed to them, but rather sent from us on their behalf ...

What if the recipient were to take that envelope and put it into another envelope and send it back to the client in quite justifiable disgust and uncontrollable rage? Wars have started over less.

Did you have any particular wars in mind, perhaps you could refresh my memory?

It's a little know fact that Hitler started World War II because Neville Chamberlain had sent him a postcard with the stamp slightly misaligned and, also, he didn't get that salty seaside humour we British are so good at - being German and all.

Is that a little know fact because, in fact, it's not a fact and you just made it up.

If you display such baldfaced boldness in the face of your own barefaced effrontery ... well ...

Yes?

Look, as it happens, I've amassed a vast nuclear arsenal in my garage, which right at this very moment I'm sorely tempted to detonate. Such is my perturbation at this willful display of dereliction, neglect and negligence of the highest order. What say you to that? Is that what you want? Why are you grinning? In fact, why do you never desist from grinning?

Did I ever tell you about my father? Now he had a temper.

The proposal

I have a proposition for you.

Are you propositioning me?

Well, in a manner of speaking.

And what manner might that be? Please elucidate.

The one that proffers, by way of suggestion, an abstract entity - in this case a proposition - for the acceptance, approval, or indeed mere tentative perusal, of another party, or indeed parties, as may be the case.

And would the content of the proposition - your proposition - involve a proposal ...

Yes!

... wait, I haven't finished ... of a carnal, depraved and outdoor nature?

It might.

Speed dating

QT sensitively applied - smearingly - the Vaseline to each cornea in turn with a cotton-bud and unfolded the silver foil wrapper to reveal a heroic dose of whizz.

Byte my ass

Come in, come in. Be seated. No, no, not there – over here: come sit on my lap while I gently bounce you.

Here?

Yes, yes. That's much more comfortable, for me at least. Now ... how long have you been with us at Unlikely Solutions Ltd?

Two weeks.

Two weeks you say.

Two weeks.

Is there an echo in here?

No Sir.

No Sir, SIR.

Sorry.

Not nearly enough. Never mind, more importantly, how are you?

Do you mean by that locution: in what manner does my existence effectively realise itself as a manifestation within the causal realm of the physical?

My, how hugely charming and quirky you are. Let me be a tad more exacting in my interrogative mode my precious techo-dumpling: how is your work with our new DigiTeeth(TM) product proceeding – the byte-sized info-vassal large enough for even the most simple of unicellular simpletons to swallow without the need to actively chew it over (TM)?

It's going great, we've managed to engineer our clients' messages into an edible format such that when prepared, by say a microwave, transmogrifies the informational content into a nutritional analogue that, upon consumption, is digested into the blood stream and eventually transmitted to the receiver's brain centre by the simple process of osmosis; thus bypassing the need to directly engage their so-called “thinking minds” with ineffectual traditional media.

Good, good, try not to make a meal of it though.

Meal of it Sir?

My little joke my precious nerdling. What news of the suppository delivery vector variation?

It's still in developmental Sir, though I think bouncing on your knee has helped the time-release coating to dissolve quicker. Hum, I must take a note of that.

That's slightly more information than I needed and you're beginning to smell. Try not to evacuate before you leave my office.

The Royal We

The correct answer to, "Have we [blank]? depends on whether one or more of the "you" encompassed by the "we" have [blank]. Since the originator of the question does not know - i.e. has to ask if [blank]?, then clearly they have not [blank] themselves.

Proof reading

Stop licking that page. What the hell has got into you?

It's liquorish.

Let me look boy.

Good grief! It says "loquacious" you witless nit.

Oh, blame my synaesthesia.

How many times do I have to tell you: it's brain malfunction with a side salad of malapropism or, as the doctor called it, synapse seizure. Now why are you trying to set fire to your tongue with that lighter?

It tastes like the recipe for sun pudding.

The dangers of smoking

Round after round after round pumped, like tiny bolts of lightening, into the jerking corpses till the chambers were clicking empty, and acrid clouds of smoke filled the food hall and his nostrils, and the sensation of smoldering machine gun metal finally registered on the calloused flesh of his trigger finger.

With his ears still ringing, Joe Kerr Jr. stepped over the piles of bodies towards the tobacco kiosk counter. The attendant stood shell-shocked. He clicked his fingers and the catatonic lady unfroze.

"I'd like a pack of ten lights."

"I'm sorry we're out of stock."

"This is the tobacco kiosk right?"

"Yep."

"So I've just expended a whole lot of expensive ammunition, removing from the queue, those time-wasters with over ten items or more in their baskets, blue-rinse lottery and scratch-card addicts, and those imbeciles who want their notes changed for coins to put in the trolleys. To the point: those that do not grasp the primary purpose of a tobacco kiosk - and here the clue is in the name - is to sell tobacco. For nothing."

"That's about the long and short of it."

"Can I speak to your supervisor?"

"I'm afraid they're on a customer service training course at the moment, but if you'd like, you can fill in one of our "customer satisfaction surveys" - "your views are important to us" - see: it says it right here above the multi-choice tick-boxes."

Joe Kerr Jr. recognised the form, it was one he had worked on as part of a commission granted to Unlikely Solutions Ltd on behalf of Supermarkets R Us.

Outside the box from inside

I was thinking about suicide notes last night in preparation for my own – as befits the occasion I take composition deadly seriously – when I was recalling how, in film and television dramas, they're still shown as being written on paper and left on walnut veneered dressing tables, right next to the pearl inlaid hairbrush (or some suitably grubbier variation thereupon if the drama in question is billed as "gritty"). In terms of communications and technology, we've moved on: now we have multimedia campaigns using a range of both pre- and post- ironic temporal innovations that seek to subvert the concept of anachronism to that of a relic. Now we can overlay the tracks of our life in viral YouTube loops, reliving last moments - our most inane and intimate thoughts – over and over again. I guess the key to post-longevity is to mix it up a bit: constantly find new and innovative ways to interact with what has already, medically speaking, past. Where do you think the phrase “thinking outside the box" comes from? Think gravely.

Or gone

New Chinese Proverb

If you sit on the banks of the river long enough, you will see your own body float past.

Son of man

The virgin birth. It has the over-dilated ring of implausibility about it, I mean in terms of: miracle verses a naive cover story for the inevitable consequences of rumpy-pumpy outside of the sanctified unity of wedlock. The purposeful credulity of the legend of lady Pope Joan is a case in point. A better theological yarn, less likely to unwind before the suspicious peasant mind, would have been the claim that Joseph gave birth to the Saviour child and that Mary was the hanger-on who usurped his limelight. At least that has more of a miraculous connotation. Perhaps not these days, where it's as regular an occurrence as sunstroke, but back then it would be hard to refute on the basis of their rudimentary knowledge of the biological sciences, and excusable, given future ignorance of how the practitioners of the medical arts would yearn to play God. And besides, wouldn't it make him more of a man's man? The church-going misogynists missed a trick there.



Now people have witnessed everything under the sun and the devil has no purchase except in the microdot font detail of consumer legislation.

All the world's a sandpit

Spak-Spak stopped and squatted by the puddle that had once formed part of what must have been a lush oasis, plush with the verdant shade of flowers and foliage, and temporary harbour to those desert critters - she now numbering among them - as they paused for respite on their wanders under the magnified spotlight of the sun. She slipped her thong past her swollen ankles and dowsed the meager thread, occasionally dabbing it on her brow for relief, and then wrung it dry with her weather-beaten hands. The chorus of nomadic chanting was a tad distracting, but certainly not as much as travel-stiffened underwear. Rather the chanting than chaffing.

Ceci n'est pas une pipe

Pop-Pop tugged on his metaphorical pipe. Or was it allegorical: from the Greek about doing something in pubic? Public I mean. Sometimes it's hard to tell. Etymology. I never had a great appetite for it (that is it's hard to swallow as a science).

'Would to Heaven that by rubbing my stomach in the same fashion, I could satisfy my hunger.'

Horatio. Fellatio?

Words, words, words, as Hamlet said. And being a cigar smoker he should know. It's not directly mentioned in the script: "Hamlet takes a drag on the ol' Havanan dried weed and in sotto voce delivers a speech to the 'knowing' audience - out the side of his mouth - about whether it's all worth the effort or not etc.," but a smoker recognises a fellow toker. "Up in smoke" is fair description of the plot, eh? Eh?

I remember when this was all just industrial wasteland and roads and cars and cars and roads and the sun ... and the sun. Yes, yes, the son takes revenge - inevitable sword fight - and royally screws it. That burns as much as it cuts. When smoke gets in your eyes. Up in smoke; down in acid. Perhaps that explained the tears. Memory fumes. Fugue? Fatigue?

Unfortunately some dumb fuck cut short his reverie by not recording the complete version of the soundtrack.

A proven track record of outstanding achievement in the field of intellectual excellence

Yeah, what next? I suppose you're going to tell me there's a guy in the sky who made everything and he has a plan for us all. And - oh wait ... attention to detail, gray - or would you call it silvering? - facial hair. Where do these conspiracy nuts get off? It's a surprise they even found the Internet, what between jacking-off over prostitutes' merkins and snorting cocaine off penguin beaks. It's too sick to even contemplate - even if I had the capacity for self-reflection, introspection ... whatever. Frankly, we should just bomb the shit out of them from high altitudes like one of those wedding parties they have over there - wherever that is. Seriously, who takes a gun to a wedding outside of Texas?

Hey girls, I hear they green-lighted Sister Act III. Apparently the script is a combination of D H Lawrence's The Rainbow and Police Academy: Mission to Moscow (A.K.A Police Academy 7). Who smells Oscars?!!!

Just a passing thought, but someone who can't form proper sentences really shouldn't be shining the searching show-biz spotlight on the rational competence of others to form beliefs.

Oh, look here let's compare these people to holocaust deniers ... that's not bad taste is it? Especially when you're talking from a position of ignorance.

It's good to talk

Ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?

Well, yeah -duh! I didn't fuck him if that's what you're implying. I'm not that sort of QT. Besides his unit was malfunctioning. It was kinda embarrassing. He never phones anymore. He wont even take my calls.

Peckish

Dr. Mercola clearly has a point, if the chickens aren't touching it - and they aren't known for being fussy eaters - there must be something wrong. Though I'm also worried by Dr. Mercola's unnatural orange glow.

Scarves and water

Thank you very much, brand new Cadillac.

The theory first received an airing in the American Spectator magazine earlier this year when former U.S. foreign intelligence officer and senior editor Angelo M. Codevilla, a professor of international relations at Boston University, stated bluntly: 'All the evidence suggests Elvis Presley is more alive today than Osama Bin Laden.'

It's not raining

Well, fuck. There's not a cloud in the sky again.

Solar News

Well, shit. It's in the Sun. Even the retards get it.

Uncle

"Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death. If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present."

Oh shit. Uncle Ludwig. Miserable bastard. No, I didn't dog ear your copy of Zur Farbenlehre and I'm well aware that black is not a colour. Strictly speaking. Oh, oh ... yes, obviously ... at what time did time begin, eh? Answer me that now! Well it's your own fault. I've told you often enough: metaphysics is not just a matter of language; it is the structure of the world manifest through language. Yes, I know, you were probably bigger than the Jesus back in the sixties, but the fact that sociologists loved you too, should have been a clue, though the sexual ambiguity angle was a bit of a masterstroke. You made "it" work better than Kant.

"A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes."

Shame your sense of humour amounts to miscarriage - not funny eh? And can you stop mutilating the tea bags and spreading them over the floor. You're not in your hut now.

"An inner process stands in need of outward criteria."

Does it really. I thought you undermined the notion of "inner". Taking into account everything, where is it huh? And stop grabbing at your privates like that, it doesn't look good.

"A picture is a fact."

And by that logic a fact is also a picture. What would Leibniz make of that?

"For a truly religious man nothing is tragic. "

Well, if you can't detect the tragic, then there is no magic ... oh! oh! that's good, if I do say so myself. Must write that down in case they ever ask me to do "Thought for the Day" - they love platitudes - ask yourself what would Jesus would do? He killed himself you moron, don't you get it? Ha! Ha! Choke on your toast Humphries, you'll never be a Redhead and the Life of Brian is beyond you.

"Humour is not a mood but a way of looking at the world. So if it is correct to say that humour was stamped out in Nazi Germany, that does not mean that people were not in good spirits, or anything of that sort, but something much deeper and more important."

If all else fails, bring on the Nazis. Oh look! there's Heidegger lecturing in his ski pants! It's a mystical turn! I know, let's snub Husserl because he was Jewish and not because his work was shit and buy his wife consolation flowers. No wonder Celan turned to drink.

"I don't know why we are here, but I'm pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves."

Sure are we? If you don't know why, then there is no why.

"It is an hypothesis that the sun will rise tomorrow: and this means that we do not know whether it will rise."

Really. Do you KNOW that you know it won't? How do I know you like your Weetabix soggy?

"It is so characteristic, that just when the mechanics of reproduction are so vastly improved, there are fewer and fewer people who know how the music should be played."

Yeah, Chris Moyles sucks big time. Did you bring me some cured sausage? I think it's time for Woman's Hour.

Well, I'm a Wiener*

According to Wikipedia:

In the mathematical field of probability, the Wiener sausage is a neighborhood of the trace of a Brownian motion up to a time t, given by taking all points within a fixed distance of Brownian motion. It can be visualized as a sausage of fixed radius whose centerline is Brownian motion. The Wiener sausage was named after Norbert Wiener by M. D. Donsker and S. R. Srinivasa Varadhan (1975) because of its relation to the Wiener process; the name is also a pun on Vienna sausage, as "Wiener" means "Viennese" in German.

The Wiener sausage is one of the simplest non-Markovian functionals of Brownian motion. Its applications include stochastic phenomena including heat conduction. It was first described by Frank Spitzer (1964), and it was used by Mark Kac and Joaquin Mazdak Luttinger (1973, 1974) to explain results of a Bose–Einstein condensate, with proofs published by M. D. Donsker and S. R. Srinivasa Varadhan (1975).

*Autographs available on request. What a Joe Kerr.

In the drink

Pop-Pop dived into the pool. The water felt like rebirth. A second chance. He sought the surface – for what seemed a long time after eternity – but the body remembered. Arms and legs expanding arcs into the viscous comfort of the invisible hands of buoyancy. Cross-laced ripples of displaced memory moiré. He climbed out dripping watery gravity. It was as if the party had missed some intimate revelation and he, an ethereal astronaut, had landed uninvited.

There was screaming.

Of course, the unflattering fit of the Speedos may have been a factor - the unkempt pubes, side dressing, etc.; however that would be to overlook the most glaring fact: there was no water in the pool, not since the ban was instigated over two decades ago.

An elderly lady had an emetic relapse on the suggestion she take mustard on her hot dog.

The baps were covered.

Auntie Freud passed out.

It was all too hard to swallow.

Won't cut it

We have to do something about the office hare QT; it keeps getting in my eye-line, and besides, it's taken an unnatural like to Mike-Mike.

Is that the "we" which means the "you" that is the "I" that is the "me-QT"?