End of year genius party

Now I want you to think of a number.

Can it be any number?

Any number.

Cool.

Okay, have you fixed it in your mind's eye? Concentrate.

I have.

Does it end in six?

Why, yes: yes it does!

Is it PI to 100,000 places?

Damn you're good.

Not to worry, you've been a great sport – even if your capacity for eidetic recall is somewhat disappointing. Derek, my glamorous assistant professor will escort you back to your seat.

[Now get this bozo off the stage and find me a real challenge. Nobel Prize? Seriously? What? Are they handing them out like “nice try” candy at a spelling bee contest for the dyslexic?]

The sleighed bell

The seasonal celebrations, such as they were, were only slightly marred by the brief intrusion of law enforcement officers investigating the suspected-death-by-overdose death of an “aspiring model” found - in a not entirely unflattering state of rigour mortis - within one of the innumerable rooms in one of the extended wings of the tycoon host's mansion. Some traditions have to be maintained.

Caveat emptor

How do I love thee? Let me itemise the bill.

The future of our waterways

What's age got to do with it?

We all die when it's now.

Serving suggestion

Flavoursome: an adjective only employed by the advertising industry and would otherwise arouse suspicion if casually interjected into real life conversation.

Hair of the dog

Somewhere off the coast of the crack veined bed of the Dead – “way too long gone for re-moisturising” – Sea, perched on the outreaching peninsular, sat the Lighthouse Museum of Family Fun Day Park Nautical Experience, where one could, for a modest entrance fee, re-imagine the perils of large bodies of water under the simulated gravitational influence of the moon, while you tide your time finding your sea-legs enjoying a range of shanty themed beverages in the thermal pressure bar.

No copyright pirating.

Seasonal sensitivities

It is a little know fact – no doubt due to the historical eraser of political correctness – that the modern day phenomenon of carol singers has its roots in pagan suicide bombers who objected to the early Christians co-opting their winter solstice celebrations with the more commercially minded re-branding as “Xmas”. Today, the aural terror they strike in the hearts of the tonally acute, together with the practice of ducking behind the sofa when they come knocking at your door, are the only remnants of this once radical tradition.

Additionally, this also explains the forgotten role of the "Christmas Cracker", which originally packed a more explosive surprise, though its frequent failure to produce a "crack" when "pulled" remains oddly persistent. It is thought this latter fact was instrumental in the demise of the pagans, however their ritualistic guise is sometimes affected by present-day suburbanites as a way to counteract - introduce "edge" to - or "sex up" their otherwise generally perceived social blandness and intellectual mediocrity.

See also: "Harry Potter".

The Manchurian Candidate Defence

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

Arthur C. Clarke

What if they had told you to kill them? ... how do you prove future robots have taken control over your mind? ... worth thinking about (Asimov[*]).


[*] If one assumes the future robots were manipulating humans - at least from their time perspective - already dead and thus, technically speaking, engaging in a posteriori non-harmful actions towards said no-longer sentients, do we have a logical lacunae?

Follow your own star

Before the fuel shortages finally hit halfway through the second quarter of the twenty-first century, it became de rigueur for middle ranking Hollywood celebrities to have their ashes shot into space (of course, the major celebrities still went the cryogenically optimistic Walter Elias Disney route). Such was the resulting orbiting urn traffic, the actual constellations became crowed out and, as an unnatural consequence, new Earth-based star charts had to mapped. The unexpected upshot of all this was it gave the very shot in the arm astrologers needed to combat the deadly onset of scepticism cooties and reinvent their horoscopes for the congenitally gullible. Hey, but may be that's just me: Lindsay Lohan rising and Chuck Norris on the cusp of Uranus.

In memorandum

On a clear day I can see the memorial: when the sands lie dormant, unstirred by the still air, contours weathered sans definition, the amorphous monolith stands, and I sense a purpose past, only I don't recall what is it is I am supposed to remember.

The Rumsfeldian cloud of unknowing

I believe God wants you to know.

So God knows you believe “he” wants me to know that: not only do you believe “he” wants me to know, but that I also believe you also believe I want to believe "he" wants me to know, even though you don't know “he” knows I want to know; you merely believe that – so how do I know? I may believe I want to know, but how do I know I really want to, given that I don't already?

I believe you do.

Now wait .... you believe, but you don't really know that I already know … what "he" wants me to know … let's just cut to chase: what are you selling?

Comfort. See how how fluffy and affordable it is in easy installments!

Are you actually Walsching me?

I believe "he" doesn't want you to know that.

There's a difference between knowing and believing that you know you know and knowing that you believe you know but don't know you know.

The forecast

There's nothing like a seasonally abnormal dose of abysmal weather conditions to bring to the surface the we're-all-in-it-together - otherwise bunting indicated - community spirit and then, later, the underlying layer of latent douchebaggery at the supermarket shelf locust grab.