A letter

To my commanding officer,

I was very disappointed to be sent off to battle at this time for many reasons. Not least because I was in the middle of fixing some plumbing when I was told that I must leave immediately now I have left the house in a terrible state with no water and bits of pipes all over the place. Though I will admit it was a mistake to take the plumbing apart in the first place as I had never even seen pipes until then and had assumed that water coming out of the tap was due to witchcraft and hamsters running an wheels.

My next grievance was that not only was I sent to war, but I was the ONLY one sent to war and let me tell you those armoured vehicles are quite lonely by yourself, especially when your sitting in the back waiting for a non existent driver. So I had to get out and walk the 30 mile journey from the airstrip to the camp. At lest that's where I thought I was headed. I arrived in a holiday resort in the costa del sol in my full gear surrounded by many confused, angry and scared holidaymakers. Why was I sent somewhere where there was no war?

I write this letter from a hotel room that I had to pay for myself by pawning my gun in a local shop so I do hope you will reimburse me for this in the form of coupons for show polish. If this trip has thought me anything its that you can never have enough show polish and also that the worlds largest ball of string isn't actually that big.

I will now end my letter by saying I wish to see you when I get back to discuss what happened here. I'l bring potato salad if you provide the cold cuts.

Regards

Private C. Wellsbetter

A history of conversation

The idea of conversation was first proposed by Edward Swillington in 1864 at a power lunch in buckingham palace. Of course the idea of people talking to one another was nothing new, but he has always dreamed of a world of where this kind of communication had a name as until then people had many names for it including: Smelping, Word Jousting and Noise Exchange.

Since then there have been many famous conversations. There was the case "Jesus vs Santa" in 1956 when it was decided how to organise christmas. Another famous case was "The two Sinatra's" in 1970 when mysteriously two identical Frank Sinatra's showed up for a gig and they had to decide who gets the last club sandwich.

The invention of the conversation also led to the invention of the eavesdropper or "Conversation logger", a strange individual who feels that other peoples business should be listened to, logged and then shared with the world. Which in turn led to the rise in popularity of the tabloid and the ear horn.

So where does conversation go from here? Ideally it will all be done telepathically which will eliminate that problem of not being able to get your words out, but the post office says that this wont be available for at least 20 years.

Howard Chalk

You won't find Howard Chalk, known as Howard to his friends, in any history books, books or even mentioned on a place mat at a fancy restaurant. This is because his lifelong ambition to be an infamous jewel thief never materialised and he was doomed to remain in obscurity forever. No matter how well he planned his robberies he was always foiled at the last moment, usually because he misheard the bus driver and got off at the wrong stop or he was unable to open some doors due to his lack of thumbs, something which later earned him the nickname "the fumbler". In fact on one memorable occasion he had to call the police to let him out of a jewellery store when a door slammed behind him and he became stuck in a small bathroom.

These are the entries from his diary on the days leading to and following his last great attempt at a robbery.

25th of April 1927

At the age of 76 I'm starting to wonder if jewel thievery is the right career for me. I was thinking of taking one of those adult education classes at the community college maybe something to do with business or maybe an art class. I've always felt I have this inner artist inside of me because whenever I see a paining of some fruit I get hungry, angry and begin to complain that my paintings are better despite the fact I've never done any paintings.

26th of April 1927

Forget what I said yesterday. Today I heard a drunk Eskimo in town talking about a jewel the size size of his big toe, and let me tell you this guy had some HUGE toes. He said it was either in a boats end in Libya or a goats head in India. I have resolved to go with the goats head and I will depart to India tomorrow. This will be my big chance to go down in history, just like that man who ate all those coins.

29th of April 1927

Sorry I haven't written anything in a few days but I've been stuck on a plane. The pilot got lost twice, first over the gulf of Mexico which we circled for hours looking for someone to ask for directions and then once again over Sweden when we too the wrong turn off the motorway. But I have now arrived in India and plan to do some research on where the goats head is and steal it tomorrow night.

30th of April 1927

Having done extensive research I have located the head. Tonight will go ahead as planned. Nothing else to say except that my mattress was a bit lumpy and on investigation I found that a family of bears live under the bead and use the mattress as a storage unit.

1st of May 1927

I write this after a failed job. Everything went to plan until I got to the head. It looked just like my childhood imaginary pet Hershi. So I phoned my analyst and told him about all the childhood memories that it brought up and by the time we had finished talking it was opening time for the museum and I owed my analyst $110. So I've decided that when I get back home I might take an art course.

The origin of hand signals

Have any of you ever wondered where certain hand signals come from? Like when someone sticks their middle finger up at you what are they really trying to say? Neither have I, but for those interested in this sort of thing I have compiled the origins of some of the more interesting signals. Unfortunately time did not permit me to reference any established works on the subject, so most of what I have here has been obtained from second, third and nth hand sources coupled with some common sense.

The "V" Sign or Two Fingers

The Origin of this dates from a middle ages peasant game involving a large wheel and some candles. A player would set up two candles on the wheel directly in from of him and make what we would now call the "peace" sign to another player opposite him. Dice would be rolled and after some vigorous dancing they would be checked. If it was below 7 the candles would be moved one notch clockwise. If it was above 7 the player would be given a coupon good for a free oil change. As the candles moved the players fingers would follow and when you are making the "V" sign then you have lost the game. People would understandabley be annoyed at loosing and soon this hand signal became a bad thing and meant a subtle "fuck you" to the person you had lost to.

The Pretend Phone Signal

When someone puts their thumb to their ear and their little finger to their mouth you understand this as there is someone on the phone for you or or they feel the distance between their ear and lip is too short. But this signal has had many meanings through the ages here are just some of them.

In Victorian times when smiling was frowned upon young reckless men would use this sign to represent a smile. In fact it became so popular that a limited edition 75p coin was issued where the queen herself was making the hand sign.

In the middle ages it was used by aristocrats to say (Note: I am paraphrasing here) "I am going to get one of those sweet piercings where you get a chain from your ear to your lip".

There are very little records from the dark ages but I heard from a drunk guy in town saying that it was used in the middle ages to represent that I am interested in buying your horse. Interestingly they used both hands for this, thinking that it made them look like a horse. In other cases it was a signal that meant "I want to covet your wife".

I picked up a document from before records began that chronicles the first use of this signal. It simply meant that there is a smoke signal on the machine for you.

It seems the signal has come a full circle then.

The Invisible Drink

When someone puts and invisible drink to their mouth they are asking if you want a drink? But this was not the original meaning. In 1774 Sir Igor Ducking had an unusual tick that make him make this gesture every 37 seconds. To avoid embarrassment at social occasions and football matches he would make all his friends and everyone named Adam do it too. As Ducking always had a drink with him people thought it was something related to drinks and that is where the signal comes from.