(1) This month's Riddled cutaway diagram shows the working of one of the old-fashioned labour-intensive 'spigots'.In 1791 when Obadiah Peasemold Tree (one of the Essex Trees, in Braintree*) invented the reciprocating transpiration linkage that would make possible the functioning of today's mechanised 'trees', few people could have possibly imagined how the products of his tinkering would one day come to dominate the world. People scoffed at Tree and the crude wrought-iron models constructed for him by a sympathetic blacksmith, until 1803 when Nathaniel Habakkuk Forest patented his xylem governor mechanism, and suddenly the writing was on the wall for the cottage-industry 'spigots' as they used to be called. "Crips," was the writing, and also "Yah boo sucks bottoms poo".
(2) This is the worst gym EVAH. I should never have allowed certain family members talk me into joining. "A New Year Resolution," they wheedled. "A resolution?" I said. "She goes back to him; the killer is revealed; then the dough boiling in oil suddenly shot out of kitchen pots."
Here at the Patience Gymnasium... the elliptical trainer seems to be missing something... the litotes trainer is not very good... and the hyperbolic trainer is WORSE THAN HITLER.
(3) Further excerpts from the Memoirs of Tiresias, Couples Counsellor to the Gods.
"Don't give yourself such a hernia, Asklepios," I told him. "Lots of surgeons fantasise about sex with their patients."
"I don't think I can stop at just fantasising," he said. "You have to help me bring it to fruition."
I shrugged. "Still not such a big deal. Against the ethical code, of course, but then who wrote the ethics code? You, I think."
It was a test of my broadmindedness when Asklepios pointed out that he was a tree surgeon, and the centre of his affections was a particularly seductive smooth-limbed eucalyptus, yet another of Zeus' arboreal transformations. I tried not to be judgemental, not even of a sicko woodpecker. "That's the thing about being mythological. Different standards. Remember when Daedalus constructed that hollow cow, to help Pasiphaë consummate her unnatural lust for the sacred bull of Poseidon? I think the same strategy will work here."Of course it never occurred to us that there would be a child.
(4) None of the above.
* UPDATED with moar lynx and Bonus Braintree.
12 comments:
So this is how the Druid boffins done it.
(I just ran across the word "boffin" for the first time (that I can remember) here.)
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A woodcut would cut as much wood as it could cut, if a woodcut could cut wood.
I thought everybody knew that.
On the contrary, the litotes machine is not bad. Also, why would it shock you that a tree surgeon would be capable of producing a scion? Also too, E) All of the above.
The hypobaric trainer leaves me breathless.
Hm, I thought that was one of those newfangled woodwinds the kids in the band were talking about. My understanding was they still needed to work on the transportability issue though.
Also, the hyperbole trainer is the BEST EVAR!
With that, w/v and I will float away on a hot air ballom.
(scratching head) Must go lie down now.
Also, the hyperbole trainer is the BEST EVAR!
You are insane.
Insanely funny!
I just ran across the word "boffin" for the first time
Supposedly coined in WW2 by RAF officer types, to describe the back-room radar-designer / Bletchley Park boys. The theory was that if you gave a nudge to a boffin's current obsessive idea, it would roll around in a small circle and end up where it started, like the eggs of puffins.
It's Our Lordy of Gymnasupe.
the elliptical trainer seems to be missing something
One of the foci?
I started thinking of iron lungs and couldn't find the image I wanted from Time mag., but found this short story:
http://www.willowlakepress.com/stories/old_mans_tree.html
Any triggers here?
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