Frogs Legs

Lateesha’s favourite food in the World was frog’s legs. If you’ve ever tried frog’s legs, I’m sure that you would agree that there is nothing spectacular about the meat. I suppose Lateesha just enjoyed the exotic sauces that came with them. Nonetheless, if it weren’t for her extreme love of frog’s legs, the strangest and most wonderful experience of her life would have never happened. No, I’m not talking about love (how cliché do you think I am?), as I said earlier, she had already experienced this feeling with frogs legs. I’m talking about a near death experience, where your life flashes before her eyes.

It started out as any ordinary day does; with an alarm beeping feebly as the disgruntled owner pushes the snooze button once, then a second time, then a third time which the said owner only counts as the second time because they were far too sleepy to remember pushing it the first time, and this process carries on until they are very late indeed. Ironically, it was the builders across the street that finally woke Lateesha up, even though the snooze button had been pushed five times that morning. She solemnly vowed to herself, as her stomach complained due to a lack of breakfast, to buy the loudest, most assertive alarm clock possible. If such a thing existed, she thought to herself, she should get one which administers electric shocks if you try to touch the snooze button more than twice. Her mind began to wonder off as she speeded down the street*, filled with Wallace and Gromit-type inventions for getting oneself out of bed at an appropriate time.

So, the day continued on as any mundane work day does, until lunchtime arrived, which Lateesha was very keen to partake in, unfortunately her stomach had not yet given up the rebellion in response to her missed breakfast. Luckily for her (as it would seem, though this is one of the main reasons she works where she does), there was a lovely little French bistro around the corner, which served wonderful frogs legs. So, after no more than five minutes of waiting, Lateesha finaly received her first meal of the day; frogs legs à la Parisienne, with a side of garlic bread as penance for her earlier missed meal. Unfortunately, her extreme hunger led her to perhaps eat more carelessly than usual, and she soon found herself choking on one of the bones. Before you begin to fear for Lateesha’s wellbeing, a pockmarked man who happens to know the Heimlich maneuver does walk into the bistro just in time and saves her, but after seeing his face, Lateesha will be quite disappointed, thinking to herself how this day could have turned into a wonderful love story if he weren’t so ugly. Unbeknownst to her at the time, she actually is looking at her future husband, but that is a different story for a different time.

But before the pockmarked man even crossed the road, Lateesha was gasping for oxygen and turning blue. This is when your life begins to flash before her eyes. She sees your first steps, she sees you when you were about five, wearing that silly coat with dirt on your nose, she sees you when you were a few years older, in tears as an adult scolds you, she sees you running straight into a very clean glass door, she sees you as your eyes swell up as someone tells you news you prayed you would never hear.

Everyone who has nearly lost their life will tell you that they do an awful lot of thinking after the incident, but all Lateesha could wonder after nearly losing her life was not of her saviour, not of anything spiritualistic and deep, but simply, ‘who on earth was that funny looking person I just saw?’

*speeding is very dangerous indeed. I do not condone this activity, nor any others which are against the law, unless it’s really important.

The Mysterious Tale of Santa

Puffing at his pipe, one of the most famous, yet elusive, men in the world sat down and began to read The Sunday Mirror. Don’t ask me why he bothered to read the Sunday Mirror since it was a Wednesday and he didn’t have even a vague interest in current affairs, but he was reading it anyway. One of the drawbacks of living in the North Pole was the postal system; the said copy of the Sunday Mirror was actually two months old. Nevertheless, Santa Claus read on showing no apparent interest. He needed to relax before the big day - he was to set off in a few hours; Christmas Eve was nearing.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. Santa Claus doesn’t exist! You may be thinking why on earth you’re reading such a silly sounding tale; but I assure it’s no sillier than a middle aged Venetian lorry driver eating lunch consisting of kumquats. So you see, this is a story we can all relate to.

Many people believe that the fabled Santa Claus doesn’t exist. They say such things as ‘Oh, it’s mathematically impossible for some old bloke to travel to hundreds of millions of people to give them presents in the space of one night,’ and other such poppycock. The thing that they don’t take into consideration is that it is mathematically possible. The thing that no one seems to know is that on the 24th of December every year, the Earth becomes exposed to a sort of time paradox. Due to the thinning ozone layer, the world becomes more and more exposed to this ‘time ray’ each year which ends up slowing down time a bit more every year. This is quite helpful since the population is rising and there are far more houses to visit. The time ray concentrates on the North Pole the most, which is why Santa resides there. He certainly doesn’t live there for the weather and postal service.
What this time ray does is slow down time to approximately a thousandth of its normal rate. But you say, ‘Why, I don’t notice any time difference on Christmas eve!’. This is partly true; on average, human beings’ sense of time is slowed down by a nine hundred and ninety ninth of its normal rate. This is because some people are thicker than others (metaphorically and physically), so the time rays cannot penetrate their minds quite as effectively as the physical world. This is why, for example, a child’s sense of time slows right down whilst a bank manager’s sense of time stays where it is; physically speaking, your average child is thicker than your average bank manager (if only the same could be said metaphorically speaking, too).
Santa, on the other hand, is unaffected by the time rays after living so exposed to them after so many hundreds of years. This possibly makes Santa the thickest man on earth. He has a good heart though.

Now, another argument against the existence of Santa Claus may be that no one actually gets presents from him; all your presents come from family and friends. This is no trick; Santa has in fact stopped giving out presents since the mid sixties. Santa spent most of his time in San Francisco during this time, where he was heavily influenced by the hippie movement. After becoming a hippie, Santa began to realize the unimportance of material possessions, and began to furiously dislike (hippies aren’t allowed to hate) commercialism. This struck a serious blow for Santa’s career. He then proceeded to free all the elves from his workshop, believing that he had been exploiting them for cheap labour all these years. They soon found work for the Coca Cola Company. He continued visiting every good child’s house every year, except he resorted to giving them high fives instead of presents. Because Santa is on a different level of time than the rest of the world, a child has yet to notice that he or she has just been high fived by Santa.
Equal rights and everything pure continued to fuel Santa’s heart well after the hippie movement. In 1976, Santa joined an animal rights group and proceeded to release all of his reindeer, except for Rudolf who didn’t want to leave. Rudolf now lives in the spare bedroom and rocks out every Thursday afternoon to The Grateful Dead. After this, Santa replaced his reindeer with a petrol engine (which he still sprinkles with magic dust) and he did splendidly with his updated sleigh for around twenty years, until joining Greenpeace and learning about the environment. He now drives his sleigh with an electric motor and is looking into hydro powered engines.

Santa took a last puff of his pipe and glanced over the Sunday Mirror at the clock. It seemed to have stopped working. ‘Ah,’ thought Santa, ‘Best be off, then.’

Conversations of Court

It is the year 2112, and thanks to various nuclear experiments and an incident involving 10,000 spoons, the entire earth minus one man has turned completely bonkers. This is his (and a little of theirs, to be honest) story.

“Court is now in session!” yelled a rather excited voice, who just happened to be wearing a wig and a pair of stripy legwarmers.
“Jolly good! Shall I start the defense?” asked a lawyer, getting up and shuffling papers, all of which seemed to be blank.
“No no, the chap’s defending himself. I think you’re the attacky one.”
“I am? How very rude of me,” he then got up and addressed the jury, “I’d like to beg the pardon of the court. After all, I never wanted to be a lawyer. I wanted to be a can can girl, but the dress wouldn’t fit.” The jury mumbled in an approving manner. “Right! So you there! Bill Tiliwingle!” The lawyer pointed to the defense in an accusatory manner, “I’m accusing you of murder of Doreen Mcnugget! What say you?” He narrowed his eyes at the defense, which was sort of a trademark thing to do of his. He thought it a terribly intimidating and professional thing to do indeed.
Bill dismissed this show of intimidation by rolling his eyes. “The defense pleads not guilty,” he said, holding back an exasperated sigh.
“Gasp!” shouted the lawyer, “On what grounds do you plead such insane codswallop?”
Bill flinched at the word insane; if only he knew… “You know you’re not actually supposed to say ‘gasp’, don’t you? It’s not a word, it’s a sound.”
“You honour!” gasped the lawyer, “He’s demeaning my presence, I say! Shout at him! Go on!”
“Defense is out of order!” said the judge, banging his hammer happily (albeit slightly enthusiastically).
“Alright, Alright,” said Bill, “I plead ‘not guilty’ on two grounds. The first being that the said murder took place before I was even born-”
“Mere technicalities!” shouted the lawyer.
Bill closed his eyes in annoyance. No, first he would try and knock some sense into them all by adhering to logic. He raised his voice slightly, “And the second being that the murder victim, Mrs. Doreen Mcnugget, is sitting over there,” He pointed to an elderly woman with a stuffed pidgeon on her hat.
Doreen yelped when he pointed at her. “Lies!” she shouted, “Lies and slander!”
“Well that settles it!” said the judge, “The man’s clearly lying; make some more accusations at him so I can declare him guilty.”
“I have one more thing to say, your honour,” said Bill, realizing that logic was out the window.
“Yes?”
“I’m very sorry, and I’ll never do it again.”
The whole courtroom gasped and murmered approvingly.
“Oh my!” exclaimed the lawyer, “The lad’s got manners, you have to grant him that! Go on, let him off. You heard him, he’ll never do it again.”
“Oh, all right then,” winked the judge, “He does seem very nice a polite. Off you go, Bill. Scamper off to unknown happy places.”

An Introduction to Walls

I was asked what would you say to a wall the other day. This sparked a new interest. In this post, I will discuss the wall itself, so I can then go on to transcribe various conversations in more posts to come.

People tend to form opinions on any old subject. They have the particularly annoying habit of forming rather negative opinions on things which they don’t, or indeed can’t, understand. This is one of their more annoying traits; and unfortunately, it is not a trait easily escaped. You see, the average person doesn’t understand why the weather is always grey, so they decide to hate it. They don’t understand the finer points of calculus, so they decide to hate that. Indeed, the average person (sadly) does not understand how a wall can form opinions and have personalities. When the see me interested in what a wall has to say (they have plenty of interesting things to say, believe me), then they decided to form suitably negative opinions upon both me and my wall.

My name is Emelia, and I talk to walls.

Before I get into any particular depth of my conversations, I must clarify a few points about walls, since no one I have encountered has yet to converse with a wall, let alone discover much about whom they are and why they’re here. Well, yes; their main job is to keep the ceiling up, and other such things (which can give them terrible aches; not unlike a backache), but they can also have wonderful personalities. They come in many shapes and sizes; and their personalities correspond accordingly. I have talked to many walls, and different types tend to follow different social traits.

Every wall:

• Has Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD). They have two sides; and therefore have two different personalities. At first I thought that each side was, in fact, a different wall, but then one side would badmouth the other side, and start telling all its secrets (secrets that only the wall itself could know). So I have come to realize that every one wall has two personalities. Possibly more if one was to delve into further and more complex dimensions (but, alas, I have not)
• Has a slight disdain for the average person (when I say average person; I mean a person who does not even bother to start even the smallest conversation with a wall, such as ‘How are you today?’ or even ‘Lovely weather we’re having’. In fact, every time someone says ‘lovely weather we’re having’ whilst near a wall but is actually talking to someone else and not the wall itself, a wall ends up extremely disappointed and plants a curse on that person that has crushed their dreams).
• Is extremely lonely, since not many people stop to have a chat to them.
• Is fluent in Portuguese (I have no idea why; but I am seriously considering of taking a class in Portuguese, so that I will then be able to decipher what they sometimes mutter).
• Is a member of the WWF (Worldwide Wall Federation). They considered suing the World Wildlife Fund for the use of their copyrighted initials WWF, but in the end they didn’t bother since they couldn’t get a lawyer to notice them.

There are many different types of walls in many different types of settings; and you must approach this idea in much the same way as you would with people. In fact, the two are quite each other in many ways. The biggest difference between people and walls is that walls actually have something interesting to say.

A walls personality is influenced a lot by its surroundings. For example, a wall in an art gallery can be quite pompous, since it has rather expensive pieces of art hanging from it. I tend not to talk a lot to these though because I don’t generally enter many galleries and they tend to be quite anally retented. A wall in a library is well read, and is a jolly good thing to consult if one has a question.

In a general building, supporting walls are highest in the pecking order (or social ranking, rather, since I don’t think walls peck) than an average wall for obvious reasons. Walls with doors and windows generally have a less alarming case of MPD because they have readier access to the other side. They are ranked second in the social ranking in a general building, with walls used just as partitions coming in last.

Interior walls are quite sad, since they never get to go outside (and never get talked to, but this is something that every wall has to get used to, unfortunately). They generally have much more gossip since they get to see things behind closed doors… literally. Exterior walls can look weathered, and there is also a large risk of them being mistreated. Overall, they have a happier life to their interior counterparts. They may live a life of danger and risk; but they don’t have to deal with office politics.

The Mental Adventures of Gerald

Wandering down the street in no particularly enthralling manner, Gerald stopped to sniff the air. It was cool, moist, with a distinct aftersmell (much like an aftertaste, but for your nose) of purple. His brow became slightly furrowed, as he wondered why on earth the air should have an aftersmell of purple. Come to think of it; Gerald had never even noticed that aftersmells existed. He sniffed again; no, it was definitely an aftersmell. Shrugging; he set off once more – to only stop when something else registered in his mind. How on earth did he manage to smell a colour, let alone identify that same smell as a colour, when five minutes ago he was sure that colours did not, in fact, have a smell attached? His brow furrowed just as it did before, as he tried to comprehend the smell of a colour. He sniffed once more. It was definitely purple, for some reason unknown to him.

Gerald made a mental note to be more aware of his experiences and surroundings. He seemed to live his life on autopilot, whilst his brain was almost permanently on holiday (without bringing his consciousness with it, so Gerald didn’t even get to see what fun and exciting places his brain had been to). As a matter of fact, Gerald couldn’t even be sure that his brain was on holiday at all, since he had not officially been informed of the fact; it was all a supposition of an unknowing optimist.

Abiding by his earlier mental note, he called his brain and waited patiently for it to stop hanging around the pool (if it was indeed on holiday, as Gerald had suspected). He suddenly felt rather envious of his brain, which seemed to live a rather exciting life without him.

He noticed another presence. ‘Ah’, he thought, ‘So you’ve decided to return, have you?’

‘Who said I ever really left?’

‘Don’t you patronize me! I’m not that thick without you, you know!’

‘So why did you bother calling me here just to say that you don’t really need my help to live a rather satisfied and fulfilled life?’

Gerald felt a presence beginning to disappear.

‘Oi! Don’t go! I do need you!’

‘A very fine way to show it and all – all that “I’m not thick without you” nonsense.’

‘You forgot the “that”.’

‘What?’

‘I said “I’m not that thick without you”; not “I’m not thick without you.”’

‘There you go doing it again! Demeaning my presence, my whole existence! My lord, haven’t you ever wondered why I spend so much time off?’

‘Well, I can’t really wonder a whole lot without you, you see--’

‘Right! That’s it; I’m off!’

‘No! Don’t leave me alone, I need you!’

‘Don’t be silly. I always leave you the typewriter, don’t I?’ In his brain’s absence, Gerald possesses a mental typewriter to jot down all the questions, all the conversations, all the interesting shapes of clouds he sees, to be stored in large mental filing cabinets to all be processed by his brain at a later date. This is one of the reasons why his brain rarely returns; there is always a mountain of paper work to be done.

‘What good is a typewriter when things need to be processed now?’

‘Oh, all right. What do you need to know, then?

‘Thank you, ri--’

‘I’m not sorting the filing cabinets’

‘I never as--’

‘And it better not be too taxing. I’ve got places to be, you know.’

‘You’re supposed to be here all the time. You spend too much time off, anyway.’

‘I’m leaving if all you called me for is to have a bit of a lecture.’

‘No, don’t go! That’s not it at all, yo--’

‘That’s good. What do you want to kno--’

‘Stop interrupting me!’

‘Ooh, look at the pot calling the kettle black!’

‘Shut up! I need to know about my surroundings now, and also a lot more often. The details are filed away.’

‘…’

‘Well? Why aren’t you talking?

‘You told me to shut up’

‘You can tell me the answer and then you can shut up, only talking when talked to.’

‘Right. Well, your surroundings are quite odd. How did you get here?’

‘What do you mean? I’m walking to Aunty Audrey’s house.’

‘Well, you seem to be encompassed in what I can only describe as purple.’

‘Is that good?’

‘I have no idea. Now I’m going, otherwise I shall be late for a rather pressing engagement.’

‘I would never get so much grief if I had a normal brain.’

‘Goodbye.’

Thinkage 3

Cheshire…

That’s a nice word. I don’t know what it is about Cheshire, but I am automatically drawn to whatever it is. Maybe it’s the connotations of Alice in Wonderland that I like, or maybe it links back to a pair of socks I once had that I called my Cheshire socks (they looks like the Cheshire cat’s tail). The tale of the Cheshire’s tail… Of course I may just like that word because I like the sound of the ‘sh’ in the middle. It’s not as harsh as the average ‘sh’s you find in common day English. It is a nice word nonetheless; regardless of the reason why I should find that word particularly attractive.

I don’t think I like Cheshire because of the socks, though. I have a fine pair of socks to which I refer them as ‘marshmallow’ socks. Marshmallow is a fantastic word, though I prefer Cheshire. So if it was because of the socks, surely I would prefer the word marshmallow, since I prefer those pair of socks? To back up my theory of the reason of my love of Cheshire (isn’t Cheshire a cheese? No, hang on, that’s cheddar. There may be a Cheshire cheese, though I am not aware of it) is the way the ‘sh’ sounds, say Cheshire and marshmallow… The ‘sh’ doesn’t sound the same! Marshmallows are harsher (though if there was indeed a Cheshire cheese, then I suppose realistically, that would be harsher than a marshmallow). They are spelt the same, but they have different sounds. Subtle as that difference may be, it is a rather important difference. I have just noticed that I am beginning to develop a distaste for the general ‘sh’ found in many everyday words. It is far too harsh; it looks as though it should be friendly, but it rarely sounds it. It is much like a tiger, or a polar bear. Or a friendly looking German. Hmmm… German doesn’t have many friendly sounding sounds, do they? If you think about it, normally the foreigners that sound harsh, such as Serbians, for example, only sound harsh because of their tone of voice (they sound rather argumentative – though that may just be my family), NOT the actually sound of the word itself. If you break down words in Serbian to their sounds, they sound rather nice (even the č, which sounds as though it ought to be harsh, but it really has a deeper soul than originally thought). Whereas if you break down the sounds of German, it still sounds harsh, no matter how nicely you say it.

The ‘sh’ is rather German (but a friendly one). Actually, it may even be Austrian, if one is going into detail about the matter.

I wonder if the general sound of a language has anything to do with the personalities of its creators (I know that nowadays language have molten into each other, but we must look at the base of the sound of a language if we are going to make any sense of anything). For example, the German’s ancestors were rather large men with bushy mustaches and the last time they laughed, it caused a domino effect which resulted in the neighbour’s cousin’s dog’s death; which consequently created a large amount of tension to the once friendly ‘can I borrow your furry boots’ neighbours.

The next time the German asked for a lend of his neighbour’s furry boots, he politely declined, which just caused that tiny bit more tension required to create a blood feud lasting several centuries.

Thinkage 2

Cloud….

Clouds are funny things… They’re a lot like ethnic minorities in many ways; there are many different types, and everyone views them differently. There are fluffy white ones, big black ones, scattered ones (which make lovely sunsets) and many more to name. There’s a huge grey cloud outside at the moment, taking up all the sky, which I find rather rude. As an added insult, it’s also made the day somewhat of a cold one, which confused me quite a lot since its April. I’m sure climate change during recent years must be either:

a) God’s idea of a practical joke (things must be boring up there, since he hasn’t really had the chance to meet anyone new since Ghandi; and lets face it, I don’t think Ghandi would be much fun at parties. Or would he? Actually, if God is an intellectual, then I’m sure Ghandi would be able to blow him away, which must be a thrill for the omnipotent. Hmmm… but if God is omnipotent, then would he be able to be blown away, even by Ghandi? Surely God must have heard it all, since he created it all. Then again, I rarely remember or proof read what I’ve created, so one mustn’t expect too much of God. Then again, I don’t believe in God).

b) Meteorologists’ idea of a practical joke (for the same reason as above, but without Ghandi and God).

c) A natural phenomenon sped up and amplified by the consumption of oil, natural gas, and other unnatural releases of CO2 (but this is far too boring and obvious to be true, it is much like evolution – finally the Americans have got something right).

d) Aliens’ idea of a practical joke (Haven’t they got anything better to do that to play with our minds?? And our body temperatures, for that matter. How dare they? Maybe this is all a test… I wonder if we’ll pass? Are they testing us as a species, or are they testing us individually, and I wonder if those of us that pass their test get to be a part of their intergalactic federation, and I wonder whether we’d be able to wear cool uniforms. I hope they have a decent seamstress, because I suppose a uniform made for a humanoid species with four arms, would look rather unflattering on the average person…. I don’t know why astronomists and such continue their search for alien life, I mean, it’s obviously an SEP [Somebody Else’s Problem], isn’t it? No one would notice if an alien spaceship landed in their back garden [because it would conflict too much with their daily rituals of watching TV, playing kerplunk etc, and their brains simply wouldn’t be able to cope with that much information, so they choose to just not notice it], so they certainly wouldn’t notice alien life through their telescope).

I’m inclined to believe neither a) (since I don’t believe in God), or c) (for the reason explained), so if you ask me, either way climate change is a practical joke of someone’s.

Hmmmm… after all that talk about SEP’s, I’m a bit more inclined to believe in God. Maybe Aliens and God are one in the same thing? No… that could never be, since God impregnated Mary, and it is already proven that alien and human interbreeding is impossible. God must be God. But if you think about God in a logical and illogical way simultaneously, it does seem slightly plausible. Quantum physics explains SEP’s (not in the same wonderful way as Douglas Adams did, but we mustn’t be picky), so theoretically, a big grey bearded man could be sitting in a cloud, with nothing better to do than play around with our climate. Though, I mustn’t be too harsh on him, if I was God for a day, I’d probably pull some fantastic pranks on mankind. If I end up going to heaven (which might exist, if it were disguised as an SEP), then I’m sure God would have to watch me very carefully, since I’d plan to get mankind into all sorts of mischief. Then again; God might very well have a fantastic sense of humour, but his acts were justified, or left out, by a really boring and friendless monk with a chip on his shoulder writing the very first bible (or translating it from the original Latin). Plague of locusts? Parting of the red sea? Impregnating some random virgin for kicks? Maybe God has a sense of humour after all…

NB: I realize this piece of writing is quite politically incorrect, and I shall strive to work on a redo in reference to Allah, Vishnu and Buddha. But not Xenu, because Scientology is a bunch of cobblers. They’re ever madder than I am.