CABINET OF CURIOSITIES (NEW CONCEPTS)

[Mick Harper]

The pilot of the US plane taking Venezuelan gangsters to El Salvador in defiance of a US court order could have let the crims out en route because they were not US citizens, they had not been legally in America and they were no longer within American jurisdiction.

The pilot was just about to do this when his co-pilot pointed out the Gulf of Mexico was now the Gulf of America so they flew on to El Salvador to be on the safe side.

[Mick Harper]

In late 1944 Doctor Goebbels gave Herr Hitler a copy of Thomas Carlyle's Frederick the Great. The Great Man was entranced by this biography of a Great Man written by a Great Man. In early 2024, M J Harper was entranced by the same book. Parallels are invited.

[Mick Harper]

I am distressed to hear the Family Zoom has gone from strength to strength since I flounced out. I swore blind the whole thing would collapse without me and they would come, cap in hand, agreeing to all my demands. Not that I care.

[Mick Harper]

I was trying to work out whether it was Tuesday or Wednesday (it makes a difference to my ready meals which in turn dictates my choice of lunch) so I consulted my TV guide and discovered it was Thursday.

This has never happened to me before so it is clearly an harbinger. But of what is not clear. It would be jejune to assume it is anything to do with senility or would be if I knew the meaning of jejune. Or indeed how to spell it since I wrote jejeune originally, assuming it was French and probably meant 'immature' i.e. I + young, but the wavy red line says not.

Shall I look it up? Why not. It means 'immature' but comes from Latin. Pretty good, all things considered. Mind still like a razor. Any day of the week.

[Boreades]

It comes to us all.

I have recently had a similar experience.

Got up late for work, in a mild panic, the alarm clock hadn't gone off! Did the usual first-of-the-weekday duties, making tea for M'Lady, serving it on a tray to her bedside, then logged on to start work.

Started the usual conference call at 09:15. And waited ... strange, nobody else has joined the call ... wait a bit more, check a few emails ... strange, not the usual volume ...

Slowly, dimly, the light dawned, from a long distance, down a long tunnel ...

It was Sunday.

[Mick Harper]

You wait till you mistake 9.15 pm for 9.15 am. That's not a red flag, it's the black and white chequered flag. Your race is run. Happened to me several times so I should know.

[Mick Harper]

You never see bridge rolls any more, do you? But what you don't know is nobody knows why.

[Boreades]

Tesco
J.G. Ross Bridge Rolls 6 Pack
£2

[Mick Harper]

I didn't say they weren't for sale. Hand-held rocket launchers with neutron warheads are for sale. I'm just saying you never see them. I formally challenge you, Señor Boreades, to say when you last sat down with one. (Yes, bridge rolls, I mean.)

[Mick Harper]

Egg and cress. Volovants. The list goes on. We must form a re-enactment society lest these skills are lost forever. Baggsy vicar.

[Mick Harper]

Whenever I am reading a gripping book my enjoyment is spoiled by the knowledge that I will finish it soon and I will no longer have anything gripping to read. Something that makes for leaden days full of angst and foreboding. But I have come up with an astonishing solution.

[Boreades]

I'm trying to find a copy of Fly Fishing by J. R. Hartley.

[Boreades]

[Mick Harper]

The queues outside the Rhys Ifans Blue Door of Notting Hill fame were unusually long this Saturday. I even had to tell one family sat on the steps where I have a rest and a vape to clear off. They thought I lived there and were unamused when I took their place.

The international throng intent on taking photos of one another was very well behaved and waited patiently for their turn. Clearly a case of 'when in Rome.' I got to thinking they would make an ideal audience for a local busker.

Trouble is I don't have any of the usual marketable busking skills. I can't even butcher Galway Bay. What if I gave AE perorations, just as ham actors used to recite Shakespeare soliloquies outside West End theatres? They wouldn't understand a word I said, so it could work.

[Boreades]