Announcing the discovery of the internet

I suppose you've all been wondering where I've been. Well no, you probably haven't. But I'll tell you anyway: I've been for a walk. Nothing too strenuous. Only ninety kilometres or so.

During that walk I've seen all manner of strange sights, including houses, trees, and unchangeable flat plains that stretch for kilometres on end; and one day, shortly, I may expand on some of these details.

But by jove, it's good to be back in civilisation, with its hot and cold running television, internet delivered fresh to your door every morning, and where you can pluck your muesli bars fresh from the fridge where they've been growing, instead of suffering the dreadful privations of the bucolic lifestyle (bar bistros, tourist cafeterias and hotel rooms).

Cam, saw, conquered

As you probably know I've been regularly going to the Dan O'Connell Hotel for a bit over a year now to read and hear poems read. For all that time Cam has been their MC, and I think he's done a fantastic job; it's become my favourite Saturday afternoon and evening haunt (insert here several adjectives describing Cam's welcoming/inclusive/humble/humorous, etc style). Well, this weekend is Cam's last go at MCing the Dan poets - regularly anyway. I'd originally hoped to head to the Dan for that occasion and read out some Cam poems. Not possible this weekend, as it turns out, as the Baron and I will be going off on a walking tour of the countryside. Instead I chose to read out a few Cam poems last week, including this one that I present to you now.

He's Cam he's the man with the plan from the Dan
With the chalk and the mic and the board and the book
And he am what he am what he am what he am.

He's biff and he's bam and he's blast and he's blam
With a lower left jab and an upper right hook
'Cos you don't mess with Cam he's the man with the SLAM from the Dan.

He's the ham to our spam we're the toast he's the jam
We're the menu of meals and he's the chief cook
And he am what he am what he am what he am.

And if he were a rock star he would be glam
And if he were a virus we'd all be crook
'Cos he's catching is Cam the man with the plan from the Dan.

He's not Komninos Emily Mick he's the man*
He's the man with the plan and he can't be mistook
For he is and he was and will be what he am:

Applaudable. Laudable. Please show your hands
For the man with the BLOODY GET ON WITH IT look
'Cos he's Cam he's the man with the plan from the Dan
And he am what he am what he am what he am
And he am what he am what he am what he am.

In the meantime, why not go this weekend to hear Cam MC for one last time and some great poems from the Dan regulars? You won't regret it.

New leadership! Old Labor!

Unprecedented
Julia Gillard has become Australia’s first red-head Prime Minister after being elected unopposed by the Labor caucus.

Speculations
What will this election mean for red-heads everywhere? We’ve certainly come a long way since the 1960s when redheads were forced to work at half pay, or the dark years of the 19th century, when redheads were forced to slave in underground uranium mines for those of the brown-headed and blonde-headed castes. Well no they didn’t, but it just reinforces the prejudices red-heads have been forced to bear, doesn’t it? It is impossible to speculate where to next for Gillard, but it is considered highly likely by experts that she will attempt to become the first red-head president of the solar system, after which she will exact a terrible toll on all non red-heads for the generations of suffering by her ranga brothers and sisters. Well that’s probably not true either. But still!

Controversy
However, several well-connected Canberra figures argue that Gillard’s victory was made possible through the support of several Labor heavyweights. These include the Labor left, the Labor right, unions, and another shadowy group known as ‘women’. It is not known how many of these 'women' are in politics, but we are informed that there are even influential 'women' figures in other left and right Labor factions. These contacts even go so far as to suggest that the Labor party may hope the well-connected red-head will be popular with the Australian public because she is also our first woman Prime Minister.

Other figures, however, have dismissed these charges as baseless.

UPDATE!
Take the poll!

Nice paper things with words in them

I spent a great deal of my overeducated and underemployed 20s looking for intellectual science fiction to read. By which I meant, in effect, authors like Brian Aldiss or Mike Moorcock who incorporated elements of science, philosophy, and literary modernism into their books. I don't know what I'd have done if I'd discovered Robert Sheckley back then - I probably never would have got a job at all.

Anyway, I've just finished reading Sheckley's book The Journey of Joenes (it was also published under another title, Journey Beyond Tomorrow.) Try this for a description: written by Sheckley in the 1960s, it's the biography of a 21st century historical figure, Joenes, as told by several Pacific storytellers, as compiled by an anonymous editor. As you might guess it's an extremely unreliable history, an even more unreliable future and, because the future being described in the novel is in part the present, it's a very unreliable present indeed. For one thing, apparently the Soviets are still in power, in this version of the future as imagined by Sheckley. That's a pretty common mistake for science fiction writers in the 60s, though what's nice about this is that Sheckley's style, in the Journey, is virtually made of mistakes, and mistaken interpretations of previous mistakes: so it just adds to the fun.

Here's one of my favourite passages - though it's hard to select one favourite passage out of a book that's full of them:

It is sad to relate that as Joenes flew over California an automatic radar station identified his jet as an invader and fired a number of air-to-air missiles at it. This tragic incident marked the opening phase of the great war.... Joenes jet, in the meantime, had expended its entire armament.
But it had not lost the guile its planners had built into it. It switched its radio to the missile-dispatching frequency and broadcast an alarm, declaring itself under attack and naming the airborne missiles at enemy targets to be destroyed.
These tactics met with some success. A number of the older, more simple-minded missiles would not destroy a craft they considered their own. The newer, more sophisticated missiles, however, had been alerted to just such an attempt on the part of the enemy. Therefore they pressed the attack, while the older missiles fiercely defended the solitary jet.

That's it!

Proverbial proverb

You've got to take the bags with the tea.

Lesson for today, if today is yesterday

Yesterday, which is today if you are living approximately 24 hours in time before the present due to some failure in the space time continuum, and is also the day before tomorrow, which is Monday. Amongst its more peculiar features, yesterday is also apparently Father's Day, which I had no idea about, until today. Consequently, my Father's Day conversation went like this:

DAD: Hello.

TIM: Hi Dad. How's the weather there?

DAD: Bright.

TIM: Okay.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

Um, is mum there?

DAD: Yes.

[Long silence]

Did you want to speak to her?

TIM: Yes!

[End of Dad conversation]

People of yesterday! Don't be like Tim! Instead of having a stilted and awkward conversation with your father about the weather, raise the subject of Father's Day and have a stilted and awkward conversation about the event before turning to the subject of the weather! Let this be a lesson to all of you!

UPDATE! - Hey, it's not, or rather it wasn't, Father's Day in Australia after all. I look forward to accidentally forgetting the event when it does eventually eventuate and having a stilted and awkward conversation with my father at the time.

UPDATE UPDATE! - I suppose this means that today in America is actually not yesterday in Australia at all but is 90 or so yesterdays after the current yesterday, which makes it some time... after tomorrow. Glad we got that cleared up.

Sunday hat quote

"RAHRAHGLAHBLAHARGHGFARGING HATS!"

- Five young women in a car speeding past the Baron and me as we walked up the street, innocently wearing our hats and minding our own hatly business. Why thank you, yes, they are nice hats.

Whippersnappers!

(As the readers come in, Tim raises his walking stick to point at them. He stumbles, even though he is sitting down at the time.)

You young people may not know it, but I was once your age. Yes, even the ones that are older than me. Especially you. (And stop sniggering back there, you spry young sixty year olds. You'll get to be my age one of these days if you don't watch out.)

Ah! I've been running this blog for years and years. How long has it been now? It's coming up to a century, more or less. Well in purely numerical terms I suppose I've had this blog for five or six years, but they've been a long five or six years, and in blog terms five or six years is quite a long time, although those five or six blog years are exactly the same duration as five or six years in normal non-blog terms, but why quibble over facts?

Well! It was a different time when I was a blog whippersnapper. An exciting time to be alive. Why, we even had cars back then. And ovens. And ink-based plastic pens. And handkerchiefs. (Yes, I know we have them now, but they were more exciting back then. Handkerchiefs have caused people to contract a case of the hiccoughs on more than one occasion, let me know, you cheeky young rapscallion.) And none of this iPod this iMac that Blueberry nonsense; all of that was still to come.

Blogs were quite the thing back then, new, exciting, edgy, shiny, gleaming with possibility, and maybe just a little bit salacious. Oh, it was a long time before the mass media had begun flirting with blog technology or anything like that. I wonder when was it I actually first heard about blogs? It may have been eight years ago. Well! It's a long time.

By and by, as they say, I had got myself my own cosy little corner of blog space and had begun posting the occasional meditation or imagining on here. And continue to so to this day - and hopefully will continue to do so for many more years to come, God willing! I suppose there have been big changes in the technology since then; back then I imagine blogs were steam powered. Everything was, more or less. We'd all have to go and get bits of wood to put in the stove when we wanted to turn the computer on, for instance. In America I hear they had grown used to slightly different technology - they'd all have to use a hand crank to 'wind up' their computers.

Those were the pioneering years! We all developed our own 'lingo', just like you young people have today. I imagine you'll be familiar with some of the terms we used back in those early years of blogging. For instance, when someone wanted to comment on something you'd written, they'd 'click' on a 'link' titled something like 'leave a comment'. And if you ever wanted to make sure that what you'd written, either as a comment or a 'post' was right, you could simply choose to preview what you'd written: you just had to click on a button called 'preview'. I know this must seem quaint now, but it was exciting then. And, to me, it still seems quite exciting now.

Nowadays it seems things are quite different. There's this newfangled thing they've developed called 'twitter'. Well now that I come to look at it it doesn't seem all that newfangled at all; actually it looks quite like blogging, except you can't write quite so much. And what's all this facebook nonsense? What with the 'status updates' and the 'events' and the 'groups' and the 'causes' and the 'applications' it's left me feeling all quite confused. I never even knew I had a status, much less one that I had to keep on updating. But all you young people seem to be spending all the time on it these days! Well I spend a lot of time on it too, but it's confusing time! Can't we get back to the simpler things? Like little words printed in neat lines in a clean column right down the page, occasionally interspersed by pictures and reader comments.

And what's so fancy about facebook anyway? It seems more people are spending less time on blogs and more time on facebook than ever before. On facebook, why, your readers are only limited to your 'facebook friends'! There's no change of any old acquaintance, or even a nice new person, dropping by to your facebook page and reading your carefully-crafted status updates or facebook notes: that sort of thing only happens on blogs. Why, I even have people leaving comments for my blog on facebook! No-one ever leaves comments on my blog for my facebook, thank heavens. Call me old fashioned, but I just don't understand things any more. And somehow, even arguments or learned discussions just aren't the same on facebook: who wants to leave a long, learned comment on facebook? There's not enough room! And here's another thing: even if I did decide to start posting regular 'notes' on facebook as a supplement to my blog, I wouldn't even be able to format them with bold or italics, or decide on the format of the page: all that is taken out of my hands.

It's utter rubbish, I say!

Anyway, you young scallywags had better scatter, back to your 'facebook' and 'twitter'. I've just discovered a wonderful new invention - called the 'television'! Why, you just have to tune in to a certain 'channel' and watch a so-called 'television show' for however long you want to! It's quite marvellous, the things they come up with these days, even if it's not as good as old-fashioned blogging. Go on then! Here's a shiny penny, buy yourself a little snack, you funny young things!

Fartisan bakeries

I was watching A Current Affair and.... shut up! You don't think I do these things for pleasure, do you?

Anyway, I was watching A Current Affair and they ran one of their stories comparing items from different shops. This time it was supermarket breads compared to, well, breads from 'artisan bakeries'. The artisan bakery they chose from? None other than Bakers Delight.

Bakers Delight! How could you walk past them? (Quite simple really, put one foot in front of another...) I like to call them 'Bakers Despite', for no particular reason. But really, they're an artisan bakery, according to A Current Affair? Everytime I've shopped at Bakers Delight I've been forced to choose between a stale old piece of crust, and another piece of crust that is, well, crusty. Sometimes the crusty crusts have sugar slathered on them and currants jammed in them; those ones are all right. I have a whimsical fondness for sugar. The rest though? Horrible, terrible, awful, and worse.

You might remember the jaunty ad campaign BD ran a couple of years ago. They seemed to be so enamoured with that jolly, jazzy little tune they had their bakers bopping away to that they started playing it all the time, in all of their bakeries. It was nerve racking enough walking into that piece mid-tune; just imagine how angst-making it must have been for the poor kids who had to hear it bop-bop-bop-bop-bopping away all day.

Fawgh, Bakers Delight! They are to artisan bakeries what bubblegum is to pavements, what blisters are to feet, what cheap, unoriginal, shlocky-tabloid television journalism is to television. What sort of television show, exactly, might fit that bill? Oh yeah. Bakers Delight are the A Current Affair of the artisan baking world.

Linguistification

Okay -

Spick and span
Ship shape
Nick nacks

Why do we do things in this way? Why is everything spick and span but never span and spick? Why can't nack nicks be shape ship, why can't we have bobs and bibs as well as bibs and bobs, and, for that matter, why can't we go slop-slap-slip and slap-slip-slop as well as slip-slop-slap? Are we scared of letting our little children use saw sees, or, if you are an American, totter teeters? Are we unnerved by the thought of bop-be or hop-hip music? What is it?

Do we think if we suddenly switch these little phrases around, everything will go out of control, that the entire world will run skelter helter, piggledy higgledy for the hills? That matter will go turvy topsy when the clocks start going tock tick instead of tick tock? Do we faintly suspect that there is something slightly perverse about crying hoo boo instead of boo hoo? Will the world really fall in on itself if a dog wakes up in the morning and decides to go wow bow?

And stop hee teeing up the back! This is a serious matter!

Summary of a book

In the past outcast, on passed, off to class, teachers, preachers, learning, yearning, burning, homicide, suicide, desolation, destitution, devastation, restitution, affirmation, confirmation, flirtation, temptation, sublimation, kiss, bliss, resolution.

Not necessarily in that order.

Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte

A poem about liking things

I'm not going to join the group Melbourne Poets Who Like the Australian Greens - but I'm tempted to, just so I could post this poem:

I like the Greens!
They're really nice!
Much better than scabies
Or head lice!

The oceans are rising.
It makes me fret!
If they keep rising,
My feet will get wet!

I like the Greens!
They've got Bob Brown!
But Bob Brown is sad
With a permanent frown.

Don't be sad, please Bob!
We'll make you grin!
We'll do our best
To vote you in!

I like the Greens!
They're really nice!
Even if their economic policies are somewhat questionable.

A sensible pantoum, written on the tram

A sensible pantoum

Bilious velveteen elephants
Galloping galloping down
Into my study and drawing room
Out of the cloudy green sky,

Galloping galloping down
A stampede of bestial angels
Out of the cloudy green sky
Dirtying all my fine linen,

A stampede of bestial angels
Trumpeting sylph melodies
Dirtying all my fine linen
Making me spill all my tea,

Trumpeting sylph melodies,
Triumphantly trampling beds,
Making me drop all my tea,
On my (as mentioned) fine linen,

Triumphantly trampling beds,
Springing up out of the window
On my (as mentioned) fine linen
And nesting in my apple tree,

Springing up out of the window
Using their fore-hoofs for flying
And nesting in my apple tree
(All rather upsetting for me),

Using their fore-hoofs for flying,
Into my study and drawing room,
(All rather upsetting for me),
Bilious velveteen elephants.

Naughty after the fact

I've just realised that after a more or less unbroken record of not-wagging-from-school from the years 1982-1995, I've spent the next 15 years of my life wagging. Cool!

Though if I ever I go back, I'll be in biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiig trouble.

Fearful apprehension of mysterious events that are also secret at an undisclosed Melbourne university!

Oh wow, Tim, something really exciting just happened... a helicopter has just landed on the uni oval... it's like something out of a Dan Brown novel! - The Baron

The sleek black helicopter silently dropped out of the clear evening skies onto the college lawn. Well the helicopter wasn't so much a sleek black as a ruddy white and blue, but it did drop down, though not so silently: it was quite noisy actually. It wasn't evening either, and the skies weren't particularly clear: it was still morning and, being autumn, there were a number of clouds in the sky. Also, it was an oval the helicopter landed on, not a lawn. And, because this was Australia, it was a university, not a college. So, all in all, it would make more sense to say that the non-sleek, un-black helicopter dropped, quite noisily, out of the partly cloudy skies at a time that was either afternoon, dawn, morning, or somewhere in between, onto the large grassy area that was used for sporting activities, at the particular Melbourne university at which this incident was observed.

One by one, armed FBI officers fanned out into the courtyard. Well, we've already established that this is Australia, and so they wouldn't be FBI officers I suppose. And there was only one of them too, but he certainly did come out one by one, and fanned out, though not, of course, into the courtyard, which was an oval, and not for very long either; after fanning out for a second or so he just stood there.

Behind the thin column, Langdon, and the famous, tall, glamorous, auburn-haired Madame Coco de Milo watched with fearful apprehension while - though I should state right here and now that the column was so thin as to be zero inches thick, which is to say, it was non-existent; Robert Langdon was sleeping peacefully in his bed on the other side of the world, and therefore not present for the occasion of this incident, or the incident of this occasion; and the Madame Coco de Milo, while she was there, had chestnut hair, not auburn, and spectacles, and she was speaking on a mobile phone, and had a different name which she had possessed since birth, and it is actually an open-question whether she was the famous Madame Coco de Milo at all (whoever the famous Madame Coco de Milo was, and also presumably is), though she was looking on with fearful apprehension, or perhaps a better way to describe it would be apprehensive fearfulness, at least - while, I say, they clutched in their hands, (or perhaps Langdon clutched in his hands, because it would be rather difficult for them to be both clutching it at once) the crumbling papers that contained the secret puzzle that would unveil the final diabolical mystery, both which were implicit in the initial ancient cipher unveiled in the depths of the subterranean vault in Degraves Street, Melbourne.

Meanwhile, in the laneway underneath the bridge leading in to university, a semi-important man with responsibility for the photocopiers in the Sociology Department, stubbed his toe...

Precious non-vanishing natural heritage

The latest research indicates that most of the Pacific's low-lying islands are growing, not shrinking. - Coral islands left high and dry, The Australian

In news that will be of concern to many people concerned with being concerned about concerning things, it seems that many endangered islands may be in danger of not being endangered.

Around the world, leaders of government and environmental groups have begun to debate the implications of this lack of an unfolding crisis, and the possible ways in which they may be able to bring the islands that are less endangered than were previously thought back to previous levels of endangerment, and perhaps even lift them to unprecedented levels of endangerment, in order to create concerns for concerned people.

"We need to protect our precious vanishing natural heritage so that it keeps on vanishing," says Amber McAmble, head of the Friends of the Worldwide Fund for Green Natural Heritage Peace (FWFGNHP). "Otherwise, our precious vanishing natural heritage will simply stay there, maybe forever."

Prime Minister of Australia Kevin Rudd agrees: "if we don't do something now, who knows how long these precious vanishing islands will stay there? Nobody wants to visit or help a non-vanishing static island that's just, you know, sort of sitting there."

On Monday, a coalition of concerned economists will present a petition to the Prime Minister in Canberra suggesting ways in which sea levels can be made to rise. "For instance, sticking a really big heater over the Arctic Ice," says one. "That way, we can save the endangered islands from being endangered by unendangerment, and they can start sinking again."

The thriving capital city of a typical Pacific Island. This delicate natural culture may be on the brink of a catastrophic lack of catastrophe unless we do something to change it.

An allsorts post, but not involving licorice

1. I have a shirt that looks like it's inside out when it's actually inside in and outside out. Even more confusing, when my shirt that looks like it's inside out when it's inside in also looks inside out when it's inside out (or possibly outside in?) thus thoroughly confusing the matter. Thankfully, the shirt looks more inside in and outside out when it is actually inside in, but it's a pretty close call.

Apart from the fact that the person inside the inside out shirt feels like an outsider even though they are an insider, due to its inside-outness, it is otherwise a nice and comfortable shirt.

2. The teapot committed suicide last night. Well technically you might say that it fell to the floor and broke, but I feel certain that this was premeditated. You see, it was only two days prior to this that it's companion cup fell to the floor and broke into a thousand pieces, and I guess the teapot had been brooding over this horrifying event in a state of mingled disbelief and devastation.

The fact that I was fussing around just below the bench on which it stood with a bucket that had several things like broom handles sticking out of it is neither here nor there. I only wish I could have counselled the teapot out of its suicidal tendencies.

3. On Monday I made gingerbread men. They had mini M&Ms for eyes, which made them look like creepily-staring alien gingerbread men. The mini M&M eyes kept on falling out, or squashing, which made them look like creepily-staring alien undead zombie gingerbread men. The gingerbread men also had a habit of sticking to one another and fusing into one gingerbread man flesh, which made them look like creepily-staring alien undead zombie mass symbiotic entity gingerbread men, possibly possessing romantic infatuations with one another, to boot. That was cool.

Great scientific advances of our time

Recently on perfecting the design of my chicken-to-human translator, I obtained some interesting results while hanging out about some chickens I know. I would like to present several chicken-to-human translations to you for your perusal. It was either that or Nature magazine.

CHICKEN 1:
What do you take me for man? What?
Some kind of backwoods duck?
I've clucking had it up to here -
I mean, what the clucking cluck?

CHICKEN 2:
Shut yer pecker. Listen son.
You're just a clucking slacker.
So take your clucking grain and shove it
Up your clucking cloaca.

CHICKEN 3:
I don't give a clucking flap,
You chickhead. I just don't.
You're just a pecking clucking chick,
A cockadoodledont.

CHICKEN 4:
Cluck off, cluckhead! Cluck yourself!
Go clucking cluck your pecker!
And cluckily clucky clucky cl...

At this point, I switched off the chicken-to-human translator, realising that nothing of interest could come out of this linguistic project whatsoever, and went and did the dishes.

Retro biscuits

What do they call those little flavoured rice biscuits they have at parties these days? They are the Jatz of the 21st century. Does anyone remember Jatz? We all used to eat Jatz, whenever the occasion called for parties and a little something to eat. And then there was the time we all went crazy over Saos, and there were the imitation Jatz biscuits they came out with - Ritz. On the whole it appears if you are a person who designs savoury biscuits (what do they call them?) you probably wouldn't go too far wrong if you gave it a name that ended with Z. Jatz, Ritz, Bitz, Titz....

One of these days I would like to have a retro biscuit party where we all gather around a table and eat those little biscuits we used to eat decades ago, with a little something on them of course.

On underpants

Some people call them Y fronts. But I call them Y not fronts.

A moustache you can trust

Nice old man Brian Aldiss discussing an aspect of his latest novel, Walcot. With his fine bristly moustache I have to say he looks quite the mid-20th century demagogue. At one point he gets so excited that he actually starts waving his fist in the camera, but it's entirely characteristic that when he does so, he is actually expounding on the virtues of apology.

I may just have to order this book.

Australia mourns death of writer it never read

With the death of Randolph Stow on 29 May 2010, all of Australia is mourning the loss of a writer it never heard of and who it never read.

In an obituary published in the Sydney Morning Herald, critic Peter Craven has said, "Stow was truly one of the greatest writers who we have never read." Craven talked in detail about Stow's atmospheric writing (which he had never read) and his gift for contriving exciting plots (which he hadn't read either.) "Maybe one day," mused Craven hopefully, "I will be as little read as Stow is today." Craven's colleagues agreed.

Writers, public figures, and dignitaries have all paid tribute to Stow, who none of them have ever read, as a great and influential Australian, albeit one that few of them knew. A number of widely-circulated newspapers, including The Australian, The Age, and The West Australian, have performed a critical overview of Stow's most famous titles, while ABC's The Book Show plans to do dramatic reading from Stow's chapter headings and back-cover blurbs on the weekend.

Meanwhile, academics from universities have spoken about the lasting contribution of Stow's unread books to Australian literature. Professor John Warblung, Sydney University, is an expert on the works of Randolph Stow, having not read all of Stow's books, several times. His most recent work is the book, 'The Life and Letters of Randolph Stow', in which he concludes, 'Randolph Stow lived for 74 years and may or may not have used the letters A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X and Z in his works. And possibly also Y.'

The nation joins tonight in mourning over the death of this widely loved, though largely unrecognised and unread, author, before going back to read the latest Dan Brown novel. Randolph Stow, whoever he was, will be sorely missed.

EXCLUSIVE READER SURVEY

Rejected entries for Uncle Almanac's Giant Compendium of Assembled Jokeage

Q: What's the difference between a writer and a smuggler?

A: One plans plots, the other plans plots.

*

An American, an Australian, and an Irishman are due for execution. The executions are carried out successfully.

*

Q: What's brown and sticky?

A: Mud.

*

Q: What's the latest Irish invention?

A: The Large Hadron Collider.

[Editor's note: actually the Large Hadron Collider was built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research.]

*

Q: What do cows eat for breakfast?

A: Grass.

*

Q: What's the difference between a teacher and a steam train?

A: One imparts knowledge, the other delivers you to a destination.

*

A librarian was sitting in the library as she had always done one day when a chicken walked in the door of the library, and up to the desk, saying, 'book, book, book, book, book.' Well, the librarian beheaded the chicken and that night her whole family had a nice roast meal.

*

Q: What's the difference between an eccentric person who goes about inquiring the local birds about various matters, and a politician?

A: One questions ducks, the other ducks questions.

[Editor's note: the Q needs work.]

*

Q: When is a door not a door?

A: When it's open.

*

One day Jackie Jackie...

[Editor's note: racism! Completely unacceptable. Wait for the Giant Compendium of Politically Incorrect Jokes.]

*

An Irishman, American, and Englishman walked into the bar and drank a moderate amount of alcohol in a responsible fashion before catching the bus home.

*

Knock knock.
Who's there?
Jackie Ja

[Editor's note: stop. right. there.]

*

Q: When is a door not an orange?

A: Doors are usually not oranges, most of the time.

*

Q: What's black and sits at the top of the stair?

A: A black... thing.

*

A blonde wants to get to the other side of the river. So she walks over the bridge.

*

Q: What's the difference between a person who designs kitchenware, and a person who draws maps on the kitchenware?

A: One person plans pots, the other plots pans.

[Editor's note: will consider it for second printing.]

Patriotic songs of the world, no. umpteen hundred and one

C: God save our marmalade!
Long live our marmalade!
Good English jam!

V: Spread it all o'er the toast
From coast to crusty coast
Proudly may all Britons boast -
Better than spam!

C: God save our marmalade!
Long live our marmalade!
Good English jam!

V: Lemon or mandarine,
Orange or tangerine,
Lime chunks that have a turquoise sheen -
Better than spam!

C: God save our marmalade!
Long live our marmalade!
Good English jam!