test please delete

[BrowneIssue]

Blimey.

There's tumbleweed growing between the posts.

[BrowneIssue]

Drop trousers,

wave willy all about,

put willy away.

[BrowneIssue]

Casually glance all about the thread, looking for security cameras.

Phew!

[BrowneIssue]

Hmm.

Anything worth nicking in here?

Any palis lying about? Sequences? Reflections?

Harrumph.

Nope.

[BrowneIssue]

La, la, la.

[BrowneIssue]

I installed Skype yesterday.



But I don't have anyone to talk to.



So that was a waste of time.

[BrowneIssue]

The lambs are getting bigger.

They have formed little 'gangs' and they roam around the field looking for trouble to cause.

[BrowneIssue]

Today, 00:00

First post of the day.

That'll do for me.

Tara.

[NickFitz]

I installed Skype yesterday.



But I don't have anyone to talk to.



So that was a waste of time.

That reminds me of a joke I was told by a friend of mine who died about ten years ago. He was a writer - seriously, he made a living at it - and he was a great teller of jokes.

Sometimes he'd start telling a joke, carry on for maybe half an hour adding inordinate detail, then break off as it was time for him to go and teach his creative writing course, or some such. There was one joke that took him two-and-a-half hours, spread over three weeks, to tell me; he'd pop into the pub for half an hour, and I'd demand that he finish (well, continue).

He'd ask where he'd got to, and I'd say (for example) "The skinhead is still running after the Lamborghini, and they've just got to Watford Gap services."

He'd take a big pull on his pint, gaze at the ceiling for a few moments, then pick up from where he'd left off.

At his funeral, his partner Rose revealed that she had found, amongst his effects, a notebook containing over a thousand jokes... "punchline only"

It was only then that I realised that, as a way of keeping his creative skills in shape, he would select a punchline, and create an entire story that would lead up to it. Sometimes it took a few minutes, sometimes it took a few hours. Either way, it always turned out to be a pleasure - in the case of the skinhead-and-Lamborghini joke, the pleasure mainly resided in telling him how atrocious a joke it was when the punchline was finally arrived at

So, in memory of my friend Chris Challis, here be the joke (all shortcomings in the writing thereof being mine):

A City gent, smartly dressed and with a neatly-furled umbrella, walks into a pub.

"Can I help you sir?" asks the barman.

"I'd like a double whisky, double brandy, double rum, and double vodka - all in the same glass," says the banker.

The barman makes the drink, and the banker pays. Then he picks up the glass, downs it in one, and turns to leave.

A drunk leaning against the bar has watched this with some surprise, and stops the banker as he heads for the door:

"Excuse me sir, I'm sorry to trouble you but I couldn't help but be surprised by the drink you ordered and the way you drank it straight down. Why did you do that?"

The banker says "Three reasons: One, I like it; Two, I can afford it; and Three: It puts lead in your pencil!"

And with that, he walks out.

The drunk thinks about this for a while, then calls the barman over: "I'll have what the gentleman had - double whisky, double brandy, double rum, and double vodka, all in the same glass."

The barman makes the drink and gives it to the drunk, who, like the banker, downs it in one... and then immediately vomits it back up over the bar and the barman.

Utterly disgusted, the barman shouts "Why did you do that?"

The drunk replies "Three reasons: One, I don't like it; Two, I can't afford it; and Three: I've got nobody to write to anyway."

[NickFitz]

I've been using Twitter fairly regularly recently - it does become quite addictive and even useful once you start following a good group of Tweeters.

Jason Kottke (whose RSS feed is well worth subscribing to, if you do such things) had a nice opinion post the other day: In Defense of Twitter (I know, American spelling...)

His list of "Things people talk about" bolsters my argument that Twitter is merely TPD writ small

(I also like the "reformulation": "If Twitter is banal it is because you and I are banal" )