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.