CABINET OF CURIOSITIES (NEW CONCEPTS)

[Ishmael]

Similarities Between Tutankhamen and Antiochus VI Dionysus of Persia

1000 years separate them. This is congruent with Fomenko's 1000 year duplication. However, 1700 years separate Antiochus VI from the Tudor era.

On the other hand, there is at least one other very apparent similarity between Antiochus VI and Edward VI.

[Wile E. Coyote]

Wile has been reading Frances Welch's short new biography of Rasputin.

I was rather enjoying the wry humour.... gosh... how can royal folks be so stupid?

When it suddenly hit me... Rasputin was in fact.... Jimmy Saville.

The more I thought about it, the truer it became.

[Boreades]

[Mick Harper]

Wonders of Modern Capitalism No 446

Last year I noticed that trendy people were increasingly sporting beards so, being from Notting Hill, I started growing one. It turned out not to be as simple as that. Trendy people had very short beards -- the trendiest mere stubble -- and within a very short time my own beard was untrendily bushy. What to do?

I went to the barber who charged me two quid extra just to trim it. I didn't mind the money but I did mind having to go to the barber every week. Apparently my barber didn't want to see me that often either because he told me about beard trimmers. So I bought a Remington Horizon for about fifteen sovs and after some misadventures settled down to using it every week.

The other day a plastic thingy fell off the back and though I could still use it, it was a slight nuisance, so I rang the Remington Helpline to ask how to get it back on. They said you couldn't and to take it back to the shop where I bought it for a replacement. Can't remember where I bought it, I said, quite truthfully. What's the number on the side, they said. "Oh well, that number tells us it was manufactured in the last two years so we'll replace it under warranty."

I had envisaged this but hadn't quite decided whether all the bother of parcelling it up, enclosing a letter, taking it to the post office, paying the postage, having to be in to open the door to the postie, being without a beard trimmer for an indefinite period was better than just shelling out fifteen notes for a new one.

There was no need to worry. They are just posting me a new one just like that. So I'll have two beard trimmers. But if any of you want a beard trimmer you won't need a pre-owned one from me, just ask me for the magic number and Remington will send you a free one. No questions asked. Just like that.

[Ishmael]

Businesses in thoroughly modern nation states incur greater expense weeding out the few thieves than they incur by assuming everyone is honest. Presumably, the very features of modern liberal democracies that make them so unfit for warfare also render their populations broadly trustworthy.

[Mick Harper]

Yes, that was the conclusion I came to. But it is, I think, a very recent development. For years (decades?) Marks & Spencer were famous, but alone, for taking back clothes no questions asked. The fact that I was surprised to be taken at my word shows that it is either not the norm or is a recent norm. The reason? Perhaps the internet, perhaps globalisation.

Good point about honest citizens making poor soldiers. The values of the (British) middle class are definitely contagious.

[Hatty]

People in Britain and 'liberal democracies' may be able to afford to be "honest citizens" but can such a claim be proved? I think you'll find they're only honest when it's in their interest.

Goods that are cheap to produce are cheap to replace. It just doesn't make business sense to pay staff to investigate every single request.

[Mick Harper]

But these statements are contradictory. If the (dishonest) citizenry know that goods are too cheap to be investigated then they will abuse the system wholesale. It will soon reach the stage of becoming uneconomic and hence force a change of behaviour amongst the sellers.

Note however that individual investigation is not required. Just me having to send the faulty goods back (the old system) would completely solve the problem. I am still not clear why Remington do not do this since there appears to be no cost to them in the old system and they have to bear the costs of abuse with the new.

Ahh ... except they would have to (by law) refund my postage and, curiously, postage is going up steeply just as manufacturing costs are going down. Presumably the curves crossed.

[Ishmael]

[Mick Harper]

I don't buy the idea that such abtruse after-sales considerations will affect pre-sale decisions. At any rate not concerning the kind of one-off things as a beard-trimmer. However clothes, which are repeated, multiple purchases as per Marks & Spencer would clearly benefit from the Ishmaelian doctrine (which is presumably why it is, I think, general practice now in this sector).

No, I think my postage point stands especially as I have been giving it more thought. Remington saves, let's say, two pounds fifty on postage by not insisting you return the goods. That is, let's say, a quarter of the cost to Remington of the trimmer. This lax policy involves Remington in sending out extra trimmers because of fraud. But as long as the fraud is less than one-in-four then Remington gains.

This doctrine can be tested. I predict that any goods over a certain amount ie where the postage becomes a negligible cost, the traditional policy of demanding the purchaser send it back will still hold. And Ishmaelian considerations will be set aside -- especially as no reasonable customer (certainly not me) would take umbrage at having to send it back. Fair's fair and all that.

[Mick Harper]

PS It just arrived. 24 or 48 hours after I complained, I can't quite remember. Actually that is also a change wrought presumably by the internet (but it may be Ishmaelian doctrine) -- in the old days I would expect this entire process to take 7-10 days.

[Ishmael]

Are there oddities associated with Radio waves that suggest they work according to laws that are still not properly understood?

The clandestine mission that went on up there on Chopmist Hill from 1941 through 1945 not only helped defeat the enemy, historians say, but brought to Rhode Island the representatives of a new organization called the United Nations, looking for a headquarters location.

Incredible, perhaps. But true....

There was nothing remarkable to see on Chopmist Hill in 1940 when, a year before the Japanese would attack Pearl Harbor and bring America into the war, a Boston radio technician by the name of Thomas B. Cave drove up Darby Road.....

Cave worked for the Intelligence Division of the Federal Communications Commission, charged with finding a hilltop in southern New England that could serve as one of several listening posts to detect radio transmissions from German spies in the United States.

What he discovered up at William Suddard’s 183-acre farm was nothing short of miraculous.

Because of some geographic and atmospheric anomalies, Cave reported he could clearly intercept radio transmissions coming from Europe — even South America.

....Its ability to eavesdrop on German radio transmissions in North Africa, for instance, was so precise that technicians could actually listen in on tank-to-tank communications within Field Marshal Erwin Rommel’s infamous Afrika Korps.

-- Global eavesdroppers

[Mick Harper]

M J Harper vs The Oldies Part One

I was with a bunch of geriatrics this weekend
Mick: I'm writing a book about the war.
Geriatrics: What do you know about the war, you weren't there.
Residential Home Superintendent: He wrote a book about Megalithic Britain and he wasn't there either.
MJH 1 Oldies 0
Mick: You've all seen the Dambusters, haven't you.
Geriatrics: Yes, best film ever made.
Mick: Well, remember the bit when Barnes Wallis ...
Bloke in Corner: I knew Barnes. Took a part I was working on to inspect and didn't bring it back. Never trusted the man after that.
MJH 1 Oldies 1.
This is not over.

[Boreades]

This is a curiosity for sure. I'm not sure what to make of it.



It's said to be:

[Mick Harper]

Something similar turned out to be the work of the Khmer Empire in Cambodia but this would be much more radically revisionist.