Let Me EnterPain You

And I’ll have a real good time, Yessir…

I think that was a line from the hit song ” Hey Big Miser ” but I could be wrong. It had a Shirley in it but I cannot tell you whether it was a Temple or a Bassey. Memory isn’t what it used to be…*

I have been watching the television in the corner of the lounge room for the last few days – in company with the rest of the family. They seem highly amused by it and from the sounds that come crashing out of the speakers set into the rear of the cabinet, there must be a great deal going on. Apparently murder and aliens accounts for about 60% of the culture of the nation, with the rest being made up equally of football, people cooking things while being yelled at, and snide comedians.

In a few weeks I will have worked my courage up to the point of being able to go round the front of the cabinet and see what is on the screen. Up until now the reflected light has been quite enough. I am encouraged in this by my wife who has promised that there are some shows that do not involve gasoline explosions or people break-dancing. I hope to be able to trust her…

In the meantime I shall catch up on my reading. I have just finished a pot-boiler by Emil Zola and had to down a quick book of scientific quotations to quell the nerves. English novelists of the Victorian era are fine workers and I am never so comforted as when I curl up in a warm bed with a fat Trollope, but the French are altogether more dramatic in print than anything on the Dover side of the channel. I guess it is all the red wine they drink.

French or English, the thing I do like about a book as opposed to a moving screen, is the way a book will pause and wait for you to catch up. It may still take you on desperate adventures, but can do it in stages like a county bus. Televisions just whirl you away like a Greyhound in the night and if you cannot see fast, you do not see it all. Plus, I find that most screenplays are aimed at Shetlands while I am riding a higher horse.

*  It never was what it was, even when it was.

The Trap Of Entertainment

” Entertain me. ”

Has anyone ever said that to you? What did you feel like? Nervous? Despondent? Annoyed? Or all three in layers like Neapolitan ice cream?

It’s the sort of command that carries with it the unspoken criticism that heretofore you haven’t been doing a good job and the fact must be corrected. And that it is going to be a difficult job.

The whole concept of entertainment is a difficult one in some cultures. I imagine that the Puritans would have been a tough audience to front. Not just for the fact that they were grim to start with, but that they would also be offended with you if you succeeded in making them feel good. All pleasure would have been of the guilty sort, but not sweeter because of it.

Modern entertainment is so varied as to suggest that the very concept is unlimited. We have books, music, plays, television, radio, sports, pastimes, hobbies, and art to occupy us. Of course some will find no pleasure in any of these and some will take it in an inordinate measure. For the vast majority it is a place to run when the shackles slip off the ankles. Until they catch you and weld them on again, you can enjoy yourself. The problem is that there may be too many things available at any one time. Wise escapees limit themselves to one thing at a time, and reserve the rest for a later chance.

This becomes even more important when you are too old to be salable and are left to wander away. Then you need to have cached little pleasures here and there in the landscape so that you can go to them and be refreshed. Don’t be tempted to make them too grand nor too far away – you would have to expend an inordinate amount of energy to get to them. And you might discover that they would have decayed in the meantime – far better to have something small and comforting close at hand.

You may even find that your entertainment need not be provided by others – that you carried it with you all the time.

 

The Sex Lecture

I plan to give a lecture about sex.

Not here, mind. This is the internet and not a place where one discusses that sort of thing. This is an electronic hall of decorum and a temple of digital chastity. The authorities that control the World Wide Web would never allow unseemly topics or unsavoury images to be displayed. I think we can all be grateful for this sort of moral decision.

No, I am going to hire a hall and put up posters on the local supermarket bulletin board as advertisement. I may make a few paper wrap-arounds for the street lamp posts in the town. These, and some cardboard boxes with spray-painted arrows at street corners, should serve to direct the audience to me on the night.

I think it would be best to do it during August when the weather is the coldest. That, and some rain, should serve to control the raging lusts of the people who attend the hall. This sort of presentation can be risky if it is done in hot weather, particularly if there are dark spots in the shrubbery around the back. I don’t want to be responsible for people taking things into their own hands…or allowing other people to take their things in hand…In fact I shall insist on seeing all hands at all times.

It will be a lecture suitable for all ages – from those who have no idea what they can do to those who have no idea what they have done. I will have medical and religious professionals in attendance to cope with any outbreaks of curiosity, and no effort will be spared to provide complete and accurate explanations for swellings and discharges. Daemons, phlogiston, and the evil eye have always been popular. Also fish-net stockings, long gloves, and whips.

No lecture is complete without audio-visual material. To that end we have engaged the services of a trained team of athletes and actors to pose in correct sex postures. Magic lantern slides of this will be projected upon a sheet stretched at the front of the hall. If we get enough interest, the sheet will be horizontal instead of vertical and participants may use the projected images as a form of planning diagram or Twister game.

The charge for admission to the lecture will be modest: $ 15 per person should cover the cost of the entire show and use of the towel afterwards.

I’ll be announcing the venue as soon as we secure the necessary third-party insurance to satisfy the council. This is a nuisance but you know how fussy people are these days about pubic liability.

” You’ll Be Sorry… “

” You’ll be sorry…”

a. ” When I’m gone. ”

Yes, probably I will be. There will be things missing and ugly discoveries in the back of cupboards. There will be more work for less reward. But I will see it through.

b. ” If you eat that chocolate cream stuffed lamb chop. ”

Undoubtedly. Pass the maple syrup, eh?

c. ” You ever met me.”

Yes, and I am starting now, while you’re here – so it’s fresh. No good trying to get the same consistency in stale sorrow.

d. ” If you don’t buy it now. ”

Possibly, but I am betting on a greater probability of sorrow if I buy it at all. You own it now and you don’t look any too happy…

e. ” With the fringe on top. ”

NOW I know what happened to my OLKLAHOMA LP! Give it back!

The preceding was brought to you by the National Council For Regret. If the Australian Government cannot make you sorry, then nothing can.

 

A Pile Of Pooh

The news that Communist China is banning pictures of A.A. Milne’s characters from internet use came up as a slightly hilarious story in Facebook. Apparently the character of Winnie The Pooh is used as a substitute for the head of the Chinese government in mild political satire. The Japanese Prime Minister is likened to Eeyore and the former American President has been depicted as Tigger. None of the drawn messages are rude, but the fact that they allow the Chinese people to poke fun at authority is considered too dangerous.

I am not surprised at this attitude in Asia. The perceived dignity and prestige of the mighty are so very much more valued than free speech, that no deviation from any sort of party line can be expected to be tolerated. It’s as much Confucian thought as it is Communist.

Personally I think the Chinese leader is making a mistake. If you are going to be seen personified in anything, a child’s favourite book character would seem to be a charming and lovable image to put forward. The world is full of enough monsters as it is… take a good name when you can get it.

Oh Look! It’s 1949 Again!

Here in Australia we are having a 1949 revival.

Oh, we don’t get to wear demob suits or drive 1949 Fords and Chevys…more’s the pity…but we do get to participate in that ever-popular game of Foolish Postwar Science.

In 1949 we played it using the Personal Helicopter and the Automatic Road as pawns. Both were going to whisk us to our office job – from our atomic house – in a fraction of the time that it would take us to go to the bus or tram stop and ride into town. They were just around the corner…

Speaking from 2017, which is well and truly the other side of the damned corner, I would like to greet the latest media craze – the driverless car – with a word of welcome. That word is ” bullshit “.

Oh., we have seen a stunt by the RAC with a Japanese bus that was set to run a radio-controlled course for some press photographs…and then hastily withdrawn before the press could see behind the curtain. And we are being bombarded with supposed articles in the social media that discuss whether the driverless car of the future will be able to cope with kangaroos…I daresay the same copy is spewing out of the printers in Canada with the word ” moose ” substituted for ” kangaroo “. I wonder what they are using in South Africa…” wildebeest ” ?

Can we now confidently predict that we will see a spate of press releases touting ” food pills ” and ” miracle drugs ” in the next few months? Or will we just wind on forward to HUAAC hearings, swinging Carnaby street, and the Age Of Aquariums?

Groovy, baby.

Detrolling Your Life – Part Two – The BGA Way

The Backstabbers Guild Of Austalia is nothing if not public-spirited. When we see a wrong we right it. No dragon can threaten a fair maiden when The Guild is present. At least not first.

Ignoring and blocking the troll is still the best legal way to cure the problem. Remember that as you read the list of alternatives.

a. Most trolls are misfits. But that having been said, even the least socially active will have some contact with other people. A job, perhaps, or a family. A club or organisation that they belong to. These are known in the general world as “outlets” for them – to a Guild member they become ” inlets “. Places where the armour of trollery is weakest…

b. Find this place. Make friends with the troll’s friends. In sight of the troll. But do not include them in the discussion.

c. Bad language can be a specialty of the troll and a way that they shock and bear down on their victims. But trolls frequently have only one language to use…at most two. There are many more for you to choose from.

Find a teacher or speaker of a language that the troll does not know. Latvian, Urdu, Samoan…whatever you fancy. Pay them well to teach you some choice foul expressions in their tongue. Real corkers. Curses that would make native seamen blanch and lean against walls. Practise these until you can deliver them faultlessly, and then deliver them faultlessly. Your tone of voice will cut as deeply as if you were speaking English, but you cannot be frowned on for bad language. Occasionally you may horrify a tourist, but that is the price you pay for sophistication.

d. On no account go to a furniture auction and purchase a sturdy kitchen table. Do not wrench off one of the legs and then go and beat your tormentor about the head and shoulders with it. This is illegal. And it spoils what may otherwise be a perfectly good table.

e. Even trolls pay tax. But do they pay the correct amount? The ATO has hot lines over which you can raise this very question.

f. If your troll is physically findable, do so, and go to them and forgive them. Do it publicly, and do it sincerely and in detail, with others listening.

Then do it again the next day. At the same time.

Repeat this for a month – day by day. That hour – the Hour Of Apology – will be come an accursèd time for them for the rest of their life. Once a day your ally, the clock, will haunt them.

g. Do you like to eat and drink well? To dress fashionably and in comfort?  Save up some cash and then arrange to do just this within the sight of your troll. You need not acknowledge them, but you might want to listen for the sound of their teeth grinding together.

In all of the above remember that whatever comfort there is in the sight of an enemy discomfited, there is far better enjoyment to be had in actually forgetting about them. They wither and fall away if not attended, and leave the earth clean for better growth.