Right Next to the ‘Irony’ Button

Customer, trying to use his debit card: I gotta push “English”? “Spanish” shouldn’t be an option. If they can’t speak no English, they ain’t got no business being here. Where’s the “yes” button at?

Cashier: It’s the button that says “yes” on it.

They also answer that age-old question “who’d win a fight between a middle-aged ex-athlete with a few months of kendo training and a ninja who’s just lost an arm and leg”?

I like me more than him so he’s got to go!

Where the hell did she get to be so wise at 19 years of age?

I went outside and…

Here in blighty the roof has come off the lean-to and I risked life and limb to put some washing out, only to get my hair caught in a shirt button. The shirt was flapping wildly in the wind, took 5 minutes to catch it again and unravel my hair. If only someone had had a video camera handy, could have made submitted it to You’ve Been Framed and won £250 to fix the roof. Deep, dramatic sigh.

New tagline coming up: not safe to let this woman out unaccompanied.

– G.K. Chesterton, Collected Poems, 1927

Any editor or translator will tell you that the sensation of dread that descends when faced (once again) with having to proof someone else’s work, will be lightened immeasurably when the text on the dull topic of telecoms begins like this:

Penetration in the Belgium is one of the deepest and hardest in Europe.

Beginning today, treat everyone you meet as if he or she were going to be dead by midnight. Extend to them all the care, kindness, and understanding you can muster, and do so with no thought of any reward. Your life will never be the same again.

– Og Mandino [More quotes by Mr Mandino.]

Anyway, If I had to choose family I’d pick exactly the one I have. It’s my youngest brother’s birthday today so here’s a little something from the excellent picture generator, Letter James:

So, just ten days after her arrest for begging, Dorothy set out for Ringwood House Academy, Brough Road, Southbridge, with a small trunk decently full of clothes and four pounds ten in her purse— for Sir Thomas had made her a present of ten pounds. When she thought of the ease with which this job had been found for her, and then of the miserable struggles of three weeks ago, the contrast amazed her. It brought home to her, as never before, the mysterious power of money. In fact, it reminded her of a favourite saying of Mr Warburton’s, that if you took 1 Corinthians, chapter thirteen, and in every verse wrote ‘money’ instead of ‘charity’, the chapter had ten times as much meaning as before.

The original version of 1 Corinthians, chapter 13

1 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.

2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.

3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.

4 Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,

5 Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;

6 Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;

7 Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

8 Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.

9 For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.

10 But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.

11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

12 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

13 And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.

And via the magic of search and replace, a version with the word charity replaced with money

1 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not money, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.

2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not money, I am nothing.

3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not money, it profiteth me nothing.

4 Money suffereth long, and is kind; money envieth not; money vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,

5 Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;

6 Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;

7 Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

8 Money never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.

9 For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.

10 But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.

11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

12 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

13 And now abideth faith, hope, money, these three; but the greatest of these is money.

Hmm.

* It used to be one of my favourite books, I’ve read it many times over the years but this time around the loss of faith, the meanness of so many of the characters and most of all Dorothy’s plight throughout got to me as never before. You can read the novel here at Bookyards but to be honest, I would choose another novel unless you’re feeling unshakeably optimistic and upbeat.