Letter T

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Yo-ho-ho
After the boat had been secured above the wrecked galleon the apparatus was set in motion by the captain's 18-year-old daughter, Veronica. Within an hour she was yielding her treasure to the excited crew.

unidentified Florida paper

Clipping from an unidentified Florida paper, in the UK Daily Telegraph, 13 Sept. 1979.
My parents took the Daily Telegraph, mostly because of Dad's predeliction for the cryptic crossword. But there were other treasures. If this wasn't read out as a newspaper clipping on the BBC's News Quiz programme, it jolly well should have been!

There were also unanswered questions put by Mr Daid Marshall, the Labour MP faor Shettlestone, who has een closely involved in the case, about an alleged yewitness to the assault and the state- ment allegedly admitting the offence by one of the youths. In hi statement Lord Mackay said : " When the victim appeared it was apparent that she was not in a fit state to give evidence and on the instructions of Crown consel she was examined by a consultatn psychiatrist. " In the interests of the woman, I would not wish to reveal the details of the repot, save to say that her meeical histor since the vents compalined of cuased the psychiatrist to conlcude that a court appearance at that time would be detrimental to her health and carried a hazad of suicide both before and after the rial, whatever the result. Accordingly, the case was not called." The case, which should have ben heard in June, 1981, was susequently dropped on the instructions of the Crown counsel.

"The Guardian", (aka Grauniad)

I, on the other hand, take The Guardian, at one point for the entertainment value derived from its incredible typos...

Our own morality is full of taboos. There are all sorts, even in the most august things. Now there is one sin definitely recognised to be a sin, which I have never committed. It says, "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's Ox." Now I never have.

Bertrand Russell

In Bertrand Russell speaks his mind.

Aristotle was famous for knowing everything. He taught that the brain exists merely to cool the blood and is not involved in the process of thinking. This is true only of certain persons.

Will Cuppy

On a more thoughtful note... Not!

Place ½lb. of sugar in the bottom of a punch bowl;
add the juice of one freshly-squeezed lemon and
stir briskly.
Add a tumbler of port, a tumbler of sherry,
and ½ tumbler of brandy.
Add a single grated nutmeg.

Now place bowl under cow and fill till frothing.

I probably lifted this from a radio programme. It reminds me of Mrs Beeton's "Take the whites of fifty eggs", which I think I remember seeing in one of Betty MacDonald's four volumes of autobiography — presumably The Egg and I!

It is difficult to produce a television documentary that is both incisive and probing when every twelve minutes one is interrupted by twelve dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper.

Rod Serling

Mr Twilight Zone.

A recent survey of the British population revealed that the average Briton watches 30 hours of television per week... the message (in these shows — sitcoms, soaps, crime, sport) is hardly uplifting, and the net effect is rather one of creating a homogenous set of values in the population. People evidently do not want to be creative in the 30 hours per week that they watch television but to be brain-washed.

Roy Rada

In "Science and Public Affairs", Winter 1993 issue.
Meanwhile, the message from the flickering idiot box in the corner of the living room remains pretty depressing, at least in the opinion of the multimedia research group at Liverpool University.

It's traditional for highbrow critics to feign ennui in the face of pornography. Sit Tom Paulin in front of a cheery Ben Dover gang-bang or the latest hyper-explicit arthouse sexfest, and he'll probably yawn himself into a coma so deep it makes death itself resemble a light snooze. That's because highbrow critics are made of sterner stuff than you or I. Not for them the simple call-and-response reaction of us simple apes. They only masturbate to harpsichords on Radio 3... If I want to see uncut hardcore action, I don't need a TV. Just a ladder and my neighbour's windows. Don't knock it till you've tried it.

Charlie Brooker

Writing his Screen Burn column for The Guardian, 29 April 2006.
But remember to keep one hand on the ladder at all times?