CABINET OF CURIOSITIES (NEW CONCEPTS)

[Mick Harper]

That would be good for the first third, good for the last third, but not so hot for the middle third ('the varnished ages').

[Mick Harper]

[Mick Harper]

I thought of this great joke
"That's a nice watch."
"Yes, it shows whether it's BC or AD."
but I can't think of a suitable place to use it.

[Mick Harper]

My computer is behaving very oddly. I don't know why the Russians would single me out for one of their anti-NATO electronic counter-warfare programs, possibly it's some sort of Tall Poppy initiative, but since I need my computer running in tip top condition, I've posted this up on medium.com in a bid to get them to move onto some other target

[Mick Harper]

I like mashed potato. I like Smash because of the convenience. Smash is cheaper than naturally mashed potato. Why aren't I allowed to use Smash more than 'now and again'? Who will rid me of this Calvinist blight? (No Irish Famine pun intended.)

[Mick Harper]

My computer is running normally again after Microsoft sent me an anti-Russian patch. Question: why is Bill Gates monitoring my AEL posts?

[Mick Harper]

It only occurred to me yesterday but the two chief women in my life were a Ukrainian (by way of Bradford) and a Pole (from Lviv). That makes me an authority on Ukrainian refugees if not, as they were wont to point out, on women. Not that Slav women are women in any sense we would understand.

[Mick Harper]

I can definitely recommend Microsoft Eleven. It has a feature called Accessibility which is a kind of overall critic and tells you when your document is more or less finished. The current draft of the new book, it tells me, is 'Good to go'. I can only hope they're right. I'm going to run it past Hatty all the same. Even though she's been dead wrong about our previous efforts.

[Mick Harper]

In my family Zoom quiz this week, I knew the answer to one question was 'Abba' but I couldn't think of their name. Should I worry about my declining mental acuity? Not that it would have made a difference to the result if I had remembered. It's not easy belonging to a family whose third cleverest member is The Greatest Brain In The Known Universe.

[Grant]

According to the medical textbooks the first stage of Alzheimer’s is when you occasionally walk into a room and can’t remember why you went there. Cynics would say that’s so that pharmaceutical companies can charge a fortune to American insurance companies for pills that don’t work.

The second stage of Alzheimer’s is forgetting the name of the Prime Minister or a popular beat combo

[Mick Harper]

Oddly, at the same meet-up, one of our number recounted going to the kitchen that day for a bottle of fizzy water and returning with a bottle of chilling tap water approximately twice the size, albeit next to it in the fridge. So he returned to the kitchen, put the large bottle back and returned with a small bottle of lemon juice, albeit situated in the fridge on the other side of the desired bottle. On his return to the kitchen, I was third time lucky.

[Mick Harper]

Does the name 'Alice Bailey' mean anything to anybody? I'll tell you why when I've heard from you all. When I haven't, of course.

[Mick Harper]

There's this bloke on medium.com who keeps making stentorian comments of a very lefty trendy nature, to which I keep (I'm a sucker for getting sucked in) replying with more and more irony, to which he refuses more and more to recognise as ironical. I thought we had reached a nadir until this exchange:

Adebayo Adeniran: The ruling party’s reputation is irreparably damaged from accepting millions from Russian Oligarchs with strong connections to Kremlin.

Mick Harper: Are you referring to the Conservative Party, Adey? They've been going for three hundred and fifty years so congratulations on finally identifying their nemesis. We'll miss them in a nostalgic, where-are-they-now? sort of way.

Adebayo Adeniran: Very well said, sir!

It's not him, it's not me, it's AE.

[Mick Harper]

Following a visit from the plumber I now have to hold things in my left hand in order to fill them with the cold tap or risk a wet sleeve. (Risk? You should feel it. Absolutely sopping and it's fresh on this week.) This is because cold taps are traditionally on the right but this is perverse as we more often use the cold tap than the hot and we are more often right-handed than left.

I appreciate this is a QWERTY situation so there is little point in launching a national campaign. In any case I can retrain with my left hand. I have overcome bigger hurdles.

[Mick Harper]

Ring!

Mick: What?
DHL youth: Parcel for upstairs.
Mick: Strewth.
DHL youth: Yeah, heavy ain't it?
Mick: You've had to carry it.
DHL youth: Tell me about it.
Mick: You wanna get yourself a van.

Quick as a flash. You never lose it.