Laughter; the best medicine

My grandfather had lost an arm in the war, and later ran for state parliament for the Country party.

During the campaign he was taking a train trip with my uncle Bill, who was then about fifteen. Settled in their carrage for the journey, grandfather got his pipe out of his pocket, then the plug of tobacco, than the knife to shave tobacco off the plug, and then the matches, and put them on the seat next to him.

He picked up the tobacco, and then put it down and picked up the knife, and then put down the knife helplessly and picked up the pipe, at which point a man sitting opposite leapt up and said "Here, let me help you." and quickly cut off a few strands, packed the pipe, passed it back to my grandfather, and lit it for him.

"Why, thank you," said grandfather gratefully, and the conversation moved off on to the state of the crops.

As soon as they got off the train Uncle Bill asked"What was all that about, Dad? You don't need help with your pipe. I've seen you do all that one-handed on horseback in a thunderstorm."

"My boy," grandfather said, tucking his pipe back into his pocket, "Once let a man do you a favour, and he is yours for life."

He won the election.

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Bushwah

Mind you, there are some things to be said in favour of George Bush. Given that he's an imperialist religious maniac, just think of the state the world would be in if he was all that and efficient with it. It's not inconceivable that a slightly smarter president might have succeeded in the Iraq adventure and given America confidence that it could do whatever the hell it wanted to, which would really have been cause for general panic. If you're in a small pub with a mean drunk, you want it to be someone who falls over a lot.

And on the Statute of Limitations thing, I was in Ireland a couple of years ago for a conference and we were given a reception just out of Dublin at the Royal Hospital Kilmainham, a marvellous seventeenth-century pile. Taking a flute of champagne from the waiter, I remarked to him "Nice place you've got here."

He replied "It's not ours. They built it."

He could, I suppose, have meant it the way Lenin did in London when he was pointing out to a friend "This is their British Museum" and "This is their houses of parliament," meaning by 'them' not the English but the capitalists, but I tend to doubt it.

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Helots

A piece from the American Air Force Times comes up in my google alerts;

"Charity: Consider a good cause

By Regina GalvinSpecial to the Times
If your idea of charity starting at home means diverting all your contributions to the “Me, Myself and I” fund, you might want to skip ahead to the next entry. If you are a bit more charitable than that, read on.....
Last but far from least, consider creating a charitable fund. Was a member of your unit permanently disabled or killed in action? Imagine if 100 members of your unit gave 1 percent of the $25,000 toward a fund established to help a fallen or disabled buddy. Your $250 could go toward a scholarship for his children, financial assistance for the surviving spouse or a wheelchair-accessible renovation for the home.
The military has always been known for taking care of its own; when you give from the heart, you will be richer for it. "

Alternatively, you might consider moving to a country like Australia where everything on that list is provided by the government without question as of right for all who need it.

*Though I don't remember any member of the air force getting killed in Iraq anyway.

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English names

Yes, there it is again, that absolute tin ear Americans have for English names. In a crap Christian thriller called "A man called blessed" about a search for the Ark of the Covenant (I say crap - it's better written than the Da Vinci Code, but then so is the label on my Thai packet of Peculiar Flavour Broad Beans) and one of the McGuffins is a letter from a crusading templar who found the ark had moved to Ethiopia at some vaguely given date approximately 800 years ago. It begins "I, Sir Wallace Thronburge III...."

'Sir' goes only with a given name.

'Wallace' is a surname, and people then didn't use surnames as first names.

'Thronburge' is one of the very few collections of letters that doesn't appear on Google and has never been used as a name by anybody (actually, that could be unfair; it's probably a misreading of misprint for Thornburge, which does exist).

And that 'III'... Mencken notes: "The use of 2nd, 3rd, etc., is marked as an Americanism by the DAE and traced to 1804. At the start 2nd seemed to have been only a substitute for Jr., but now it often indicates, not the son, but the grandson or nephew of the first bearer of the name. The use of the Roman numerals II, III, etc., came much later. It is frowned upon in England as an invasion of Royal prerogative..." Not that the royals numbered themselves till a good deal later than 800 years ago.

Even some good writers, though, have the same tin ear; "Lord John Marbury" in West Wing still rankles. CJ says he's the 'hereditary Earl Of Shelbourne' , making him Lord Shelbourne and not Lord Marbury.

What is it about Americans and English names?

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Silent treatment

You have to admire the delicate wit whereby US News and World Report has accompanied its story on Bush evading his National Guard obligations with a picture of a girl captioned

Silent treatment, n. (1) adolescent act of defiance. (2) denial of drug and alcohol problems.

And, flipping back to the page, I see it's been replaced by another anti-drug ad -

What if I can't handle the truth?

What if it's worse than I thought?

Pure gold.

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Not angry, just very, very sad

Disillusionment! For just about the first time Google has let me down. Watching a program last night dramatising Stephen Hawking's early life, I was of course shouting "Nonsense!" and "Horsefeathers!" whenever Penzias and Wilson came on to say that they'd discovered the background microwave radiation proving the Big Bang, knowing, as do all we skeptics, that it was discovered by their research assistant. I called up Google to verify the fact to a sceptical Rose, and it didn't say anything about it! I'm truly shocked.

Oh well, let's look in the book at Amazon.

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Arnold

Apparently gave a good speech at the RNC on how America is the land of opportunity where anyone can rise to the heights as he did.

Mind you, one of my favourite quotes has always been that one from pumping iron where Arn is reflecting on tactics; (from memory) "The great thing about being champion is that the up-and-coming triers look up to me, and they come to me for advice about how to compete. And I give them bad advices...."

He's rich, he's powerful, and he doesn't want company.

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