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The morally instructive determinings of PROFESSOR THAUMUS PHAMBLEMELL
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A CORRESPONDENT WRITES: Some little time ago, while defending my position with cogent argument in a dispute concerning a game of chance, I shot and killed the Duke of Exeter, his mother and the local rector, no more than two or three dinner-guests, a gentleman who asked me directions on the way home, and everyone in my house; and, some days later, an Inspector and several police officers who confronted me at a railway station, and an inspector. Since that time, I have been blackballed by my clubs, and sent to Coventry by friends and business partners, some of whom I have also subsequently shot and killed. It seems that my only recourse is to start a new life in a far-off land of savages, like Coventry. Is it acceptable for society to ostracise those of us who succumb to a string of single moments of weakened madness?
PROFESSOR PHAMBLEMELL REPLIES: Yes, sir, my emphasis on yessing; it is quite acceptable for your circle to behave in this manner. We most of us have in our time, sir, shot a peer during a card game; it is all in the MANLY ROUGH-AND-TUMBLE of an evening's distracting-entertainment, and as much a part of the VIGOROUS FOLLY OF SWEET YOUTH as knocking away a police-man's hat and fathering negligently. It is your INDISCRETION, sir, which undoes you: by all means exercise your harmless hobby, but maintain discretion at every turn; there is NO SHAME in beating and killing a man, it is why God has given us the servant-classes. Once you have grasped this point and made some APPROPRIATE GESTURE OF APOLOGY such as purchasing a mill, society will forgive you as our own MR J CHRIST has taught. |
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Sir:
What's small, red and has sixteen legs? Give up? That's disappointing, as one's just crawled up my trousers. It's bitten me, and I'm having trouble breathing. My vision is blurring, I'm sweating and the fingers of my left hand have gone numb. Frankly, I expected more of you. I am cancelling my subscription. |
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| The pound is up 0.6192 against a single throaty cry cut off by the sounds of a heavy blow, then a pause and a loud splash, but it's probably the cat next door again. |
| state of the pound archive |
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The BRITON'S SCIENCE has shewn that The Weekly, the magazine which strives to maintain Britain's standards, has topped* one million readers since 1871.
"If I'd have my way and it'd been set in LA and starred Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks it'd have been five times that by now," said MR MILLINGTON of this mathematically inevitable achievement.
MR NASH added: "That urchin stole my gruel."
* Though not, of course, in the sense of assassination. The Weekly has had cause to assassinate no more than a handful of unsatisfactory employees and some readers. |
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Sup from the issue broth with the random ladle. New issue every time, subject to blind unfavouring chance. |
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| This chap's purchased an OFFICIAL THE WEEKLY T-SHAPED SHIRT and now he's working off his shame at indulging in such wasteful extravagance. You too may display similar penitence, and perhaps press hot coins guiltily into the hands of a stooped clerk for a copy of MR MILLINGTON's improving books Things About Which My Girlfriend And I Have Argued, A Certain Chemistry, Love and Other Near-Death Experiences and Instructions For Living Someone Else's Life, by patronising the The Weekly Corner Shop corner shop. Items despatched under plain wrapper, school-boys will be chased from the premises with a broom. |
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Game: Extendy!
Played chiefly in: Chertsey.
Objective: Be the last player remaining in the game by "extending" it beyond all natural levels of interest and skill. Players can add new rules and goals arbitrarily, directly contradicting earlier ones if they like, with the sole purpose of driving what entertainment value the game may once have possessed deeply into the cold, cold ground and causing everyone else to give up in broken dismay.
Obstacles: Death. A properly run game of Extendy! with a full set of obdurately self-destructive players can run for up to 117 years, and nothing upsets a participant more than another dropping dead before they've officially resigned.
Rating: Not a spectator favourite. |
| heritage of games archive |
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| Remain UP-TO-DATE and KEENLY ABREAST with a subscription to BRITAIN'S ADVOCATE OF QUALITIES. You will receive notification by e-mail of forthcoming issues of the magazine which inspires Britons everywhere to forge ahead to a better newness. Alternatively, sub down from the list in weary satiety. |
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