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CABINET OF CURIOSITIES (NEW CONCEPTS)
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Mick Harper
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Ah, the second book has an AE tale to tell. We needed to know something about an obscure German poet for our current book and Joseph Goebbels happened to do his PhD thesis on the dude. Obviously we'd like to weave the Goebbels name into the book for commercial reasons (but only in the best possible taste and only if it contributed substantially to the development of the argument set out in the book) so I ordered the standard British bio of Goebbels from the library. Which is by David Irving. I wondered what would happen.

Something unique in my decades of ordering books. It did not arrive the next day, it was not 'out' and I was in a queue for it, it was not pending an inter-library loan, it was not declared 'unavailable' -- the four usual categories. It was 'in transit', something I'd never come across before. And remained so for several weeks. Now it's arrived. And more surprises unfolded...
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Mick Harper
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The one thing libraries care about is the condition of their books. You would be hard pressed to find a single book in a single public library that is not fit for purpose. I don't mean just to read, I mean to lend out. They're always close to tip-top. My copy of David Irving's Goebbels is in the sort of state you wouldn't see in the dodgier end of the Brighton Lanes. What does this tell us? That libraries cannot order David Irving books and haven't been able to do for ... ten or twenty years. This one came out in 1996 and has presumably been lent and re-lent for twenty years. But nor, realistically, can they bin it on account of the opinions on the back cover

"David Irving is a patient researcher of unrivalled industry and success" A J P Taylor, The Observer

"Irving has an extraordinary talent for digging up otherwise obscure Nazi sources. He does have a real knack of penetrating the 'mind' of Nazism." Norman Stone, New Statesman

"David Irving, a remarkable researcher, a brilliant discoverer of documents and a skilful writer, tells the story well" Hugh Trevor-Roper, Sunday Telegraph

Like I pointed out over on the Forgeries thread, history has been getting awfully political lately.
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Mick Harper
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The Throwaway Society No. 27

M J Harper (admiringly): Where can I buy a pair of those?
Podiatrist: You can have these if you like, they're single use.
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Mick Harper
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Quiz Question No. 44

What's the difference between a podiatrist and a chiropodist?
About fifty quid.
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Mick Harper
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Are You A Face? No. 6

So I'm crossing the road and a van stops to let me pass. The driver beckons me over. "Wanna orthopaedic mattress?" I was struck dumb, not by the unusualness of the situation, but because I actually do. Not orthopaedic necessarily but definitely something better than my current nightmare. Sensing my quickening interest, he said, "Brand new. In the back. Very reasonable." I could do no more than shake my head and continue crossing. I was absolutely terrified.
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Chad


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Mick Harper wrote:
The Throwaway Society No. 27

M J Harper (admiringly): Where can I buy a pair of those?
Podiatrist: You can have these if you like, they're single use.

My dental hygienist gave me a pack of single use, orange plastic tooth picks.

(Yes I'm going to rinse them off and re-use them.)
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Mick Harper
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Having finished my Christmas shop (it gets earlier and earlier every year) I flopped down for my Saturday treat with Marina Hyde. What’s this? Our old friend, Alice Roberts, is in her place. Tough gig. How did she make out?

I love Christmas. At this very special time of year, when the sun appears only fleetingly to those of us living in the northern hemisphere

Can I stop you there, Alice? By no stretch of the imagination can eight hours be called 'fleeting' and it’s considerably more than that for our fellow-hemisphoreans near the equator.

Occasionally, friends who know I’m a humanist have questioned why I would celebrate Christmas. But while Christians may choose to commemorate the birth of Jesus on 25 December, I don’t see any reason why others shouldn’t enjoy a midwinter ritual whose roots go back much further than the origins of Christianity.

OK, so the battle lines are drawn. Alice says ‘Christmas’ is pre-Christian. There follows an excellent – I mean excellent – account of Roman/Christian manoeuvrings to get 25th December enshrined but then comes a false note

As a midwinter festival of the sun, the date makes celestial sense. It falls just after the solstice, when the days are perceptibly lengthening

It makes no sense at all. If you want to celebrate the solstice, do it on the solstice. If you want to do it when the days are perceptibly lengthening do it ... I dunno, twelfth night ... you choose. But definitely not after four days (three in some years). Now, I'm afraid, comes the abject surrender

It’s difficult to know what festivals were celebrated by our pagan ancestors in pre–Roman times – as this takes us into prehistory, which is defined by a lack of history.

Not difficult, Alice. Not possible, Alice. You can line up as many prehistoric monuments with the winter solstice as you want, you’ll still only have astronomical markers, won’t you? It doesn’t rule out and it doesn’t rule in that pre-historic Britons did/did not have a midwinter festival and did/did not celebrate it on 25th December or any other wintry day of their choosing/not choosing.

Your best bet is tell your friends you're a devotee of the Roman state religion of Sol Invictus. That's what I do.
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Mick Harper
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For Want Of A Nail

I stride confidently towards the kitchen to make two boiled eggs for my breakfast, soft but firm like a young girl’s brain, when I remember for the hundredth time I don't have any egg cups.

PS Breasts do play a part in cooking. When kneading dough you are instructed to continue until it has the consistency and feel of etc etc
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Mick Harper
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A new film on Netflix, The Two Popes, starring Anthony Hopkins as Pope Benedict (the German one who resigned under mysterious circumstances) and Jonathan Pryce as Pope Francis (the present Argie one). Very good though not perhaps for you Chad, your faith has been tested enough recently. The only distraction is that the young Francis is played in flashback by an Ossie Ardiles lookalike. Benedict hates Francis and his progressive ways. As Hopkins sings in the final reel which I haven't reached yet

"He's on his way to Roma
He should have stayed at home-ah"
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Mick Harper
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Christmas dinner this year was in Wales and being cooked by an elderly vegetarian Maratha Jewess. "Don’t worry, Mick, we’ve got you a turkey breast.” You can see the problem, can't you? When Yahweh was listing taboo animals he hadn’t yet discovered the turkey, so I knew I was in deep trouble. “S’all right,” I said, emphasising my English accent. “Daal and chapattis’ll see me through.” And a coupla Scotch eggs from the pub, I said under my breath.

End of story? You must be joking. Going home time. “I’ll put the turkey in the bag with a few bits and pieces, Mick. Best cook it straightaway after five hours in the train.” Bits and pieces! Bleedin’ great sack more like. Never spend Christmas with save-the-planet people. What am I going to do with a hundred Linda McCartney cocktail sausages with a Boxing Day eat-by date? End of story? You must be joking...
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Mick Harper
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Now the redemptive bit I always try to work into my stories. When me and the sack and the stuff I'd taken for four days in Wales eventually got home (no thanks to the new West Coast franchisee -- Virgin Trains Minus I think they're called) I found this was no ‘turkey breast’, it was a twenty-five sovs Waitrose top o’ the range oven-ready selectedly shaped wonderbird with stuffing and bacon rashers beautifully laid out on top. I slammed it into the Baby Belling. (They’re also called something else now and include a rotisserie though I’ve never found it.) One hour, it said. I can do that. Even if, after forty-five minutes, you have to baste it. It's all go, I don't know how proper cooks manage.

Now, I confess, I’ve never roasted anything but even I knew that you can’t baste when the bottom of the tin foil is still solid fat. You’re absolutely right, the oven had chosen this moment to pack up. I suppose, since we'd been together for a fair few years, it was all too much for the both of us. I was angry but also a little sad. Parting of the ways, old friend.

The Argos people weren’t delivering that late so, conscious that the food bugs were gathering, I had to grill it. Goodbye to the stuffing and the bacon, charred even beyond my broad tastes, but I had a turkey that looked the right colour and consistency. Trouble was, in desperation, I’d been snacking on all the other stuff in the doggy sack (I never want to see another responsibly sourced cheese straw as long as I live) and I just couldn’t face it. But I’ve got some biochemical training so I knew it would be OK to stick it in the fridge, buy a new cooker, some Aunt Jemima roast potatoes, a Lloyd Grossman turkey gravy thingamy thingamy and tuck in. Wish me luck!
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Mick Harper
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Stupendo. Best Christmas dinner ever. Ever. Ever and ever, amen. And it's all down to an AE reason, the gift that isn't just for Christmas. It was piping hot. I never understood that term until now. Christmas dinners are always luke-warm -- another revelatory term, he came third in line -- because of their nature. It just takes so damned long to A: assemble everything on the table ("Yes, it's coming, Noreen forgot to put them in the microwave") B: assemble everything on your plate ("Can we have the mash up this end?") C: assemble everything on your fork (every mouthful must contain the cooling essence of cranberry) and D: live in a such a food-hostile culture that elementary things like warming the plates are considered an alien intrusion, that you're lucky if the gravy has not congealed on your plate before it reaches your palate.

Roast potatoes hot, roast potatoes cold,
The British are a race that won't be told. And secondly...
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Mick Harper
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They are not for eating. This is Christmas, for Chrissake. It's the season of excess. There's a reason you don't eat Brussel sprouts, roast parsnips and licorice & elderflower stuffing any other time of the year -- they're disgusting. Never has dry turkey and Aunt Jemima tasted so good as when simply accompanied by petit pois. So why the congeries? I accept that excess is required but why does it have to be taken to excess? The answer is that we can add but we cannot subtract. Woe to the person who says, "Do we really need sausages?" As Barak Obama said, "Yes, we do." I wouldn't have it any other way but it was good to discover there is another way.

Next: Should New Year be celebrated when, for so many of our fellow-citizens, it is not their New Year?
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Mick Harper
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They say that policeman always seem to get younger as you yourself get older but it's also true of major consumer goods distributors

Hooray, it's here!
Michael, don’t dilly dally…
It's time to collect your oven
Pop in by…
5:00pm on Sunday 29 December
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Mick Harper
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New Year Resolutions

Hands up anyone who's determined to stop being a slob? It was a trick question. Take their names, Harriet.
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