Someone has to keep the records…
The Cacao is a fruite little lesse then Almonds, yet more fat, the which being roasted hath no ill taste. The chief use of this Cacao is in a drinke which they call Chocholate, whereof they make great accompt in that Country, foolishly, and without reason; for it is loathsome to such as are not acquainted with it, having a skum or froth that is very unpleasant to taste, if they be not very well conceited thereof. Yet it is a drinke very much esteemed among the Indians, wherewith they feast Noble men as they passe through their Country.
What are hands for, if not to hide the eyes?
Le Soixante-neuf est Interdit dans les Couloirs.
Eight years’ penal servitude.
As a lorry driven by Croxley left the scene, the sound of a hunting horn was heard. Was it a warning? The police found the body of a stag in the bracken, still warm. Later, police came across Croxley, Ryman and Straker standing by the lorry at the place where the stag had been. Croxley said he was birdwatching, Ryman said his hobby was photography, and Straker, who was carrying a crossbow, said: ‘I am interested in all forms of medieval weaponry.’ In the lorry police found a quiver full of arrows, a pair of binoculars, two pairs of Sherwood Green tights, and five sheath knives. A broken arrowshaft corresponded to an arrowhead embedded in the dead stag. All three men said they were committee members of Bowmen for Britain, had been out seeking small vermin, and had been on a public footpath. Straker said: ‘I saw a squirrel and fired at it but the stag which I did not know was there ran into it.’
A child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame.
I love anecdotes. I fancy mankind may come in time to write all aphoristically, except in narrative; grow weary of preparation and connection and illustration, and all those arts by which a big book is made.
The man had long white hands which he clasped tightly behind his back when not using them to eat several helpings of jellied eels. Most customers looked thoughtful.
One year, suspended.
All afternoon the girl threatened to jump. She said her husband had become converted to a religious sect which forbade her the use of her television. When she had wished to listen to the Queen’s Xmas broadcast she had had to go into the bathroom. It was her radio. Because she used makeup her husband likened her to Jezebel, the painted woman of the Scriptures. It was accepted that he was sincere. As soon as they brought a priest to talk to her, she jumped.
Permission to laugh?
Have you heard what Cynon sang?
Beware of drunkards –
Drink unlocks the human heart.
The father appealed for witnesses to his son’s death to come forward, not expecting to be overwhelmed by numbers. What had happened as far as they knew was that on Furse Bend he had crossed the inner edge on to the central reserve and in the resulting spill (which was not particularly dangerous in itself) the point of the clutch lever had entered his brain by way of the base of his skull. The father wished to know how designers of safety helmets had not taken this possibility into account. His colleagues said he should have had a ball on it.
But I am trying to be benign.
A rusty charlatan stated dogmatically that a discussion was an argument in which no one was particularly interested. He was reminded that every good deed is followed by the punishment of God. But, he insisted, one must have a proper regard for the ordinary.
The continuous process of recognizing that what is possible is not achievable.
A man taking pictures of a man taking pictures: there must be something in that.
At a wedding reception everyone was drunk, including the children. Indeed, one of the children became so affected as to seem ill, and it was considered advisable to take him to a hospital to have him seen to, stomach-pumped if necessary. They chose the receptor who seemed least drunk to drive the child, quickly. On the way the car was stopped by a policeman on a horse, who invited the driver to puff breath into a plastic bag. Crystals in the tube attached to this bag turned a certain colour which convinced the policeman that the driver was under the influence of alcohol and he informed him that he would be charged with an offence. ‘Oh no,’ said the driver, ‘Your bags must be faulty. Perhaps indeed you have a batch of faulty bags. Why don’t we test them by trying one out on this innocent child?’
A bard’s land shall be free. He shall have a horse when he follows the king and a gold ring from the queen and the harp he shall never part with.
Do I want that to be the truth?
The Vice-Chancellor was killed when inspecting the progress of the building of Senate House. A technician was pushing a loaded wheelbarrow across a plank spanning a liftshaft. He saved himself, but the wheelbarrow was lost. The Vice-Chancellor was standing at the bottom of the liftshaft. Accommodate that mess.
Most of the time they look for things to want, schoolfriends.
Miceal and I would play snooker. He would generally win. His was always the same remark when he sank the green or the brown which would put him beyond being caught unless he gave away an unlikely number of penalty points: ‘Now you haven’t got enough balls. You’ll have to put your own up.’ I cannot say I laughed more than the first and second times, despite tradition. And ‘No points for hard luck’ was another saying of his that stuck.
– Who was there?
– The usual mess, of course. Baldies, hairies, collapsed faces, fallen women, who would you think?
Life.
Someone has to keep the records. I may even be thanked, in time.