When they told us about Ockham’s razor at school I was slightly annoyed. It doesn’t make sense, why not Ockham’s Theory, or Ockham’s Hypothesis or Premise or even Ockham’s Quite Smart Idea? Why Razor? It’s completely arbitrary. And why aren’t there anymore Razor’s about different things? This has been festering in the back of my mind for twenty two years now so I’ve decided it’s high time to re-dress the balance and propose my own Razor. In fact I’d like to see a lot more people proposing their own Razor’s, no more theory’s or premises there’s too many already, we need more Razor’s now.
So, here’s my Razor “you were just trying to help”. Like Ockham’s Razor it’s not exactly revolutionary or inspiring, but the good thing is it can be used in an immense number of different situations and is probably right most of the time. This Razor can be used on other people, or you can use the Razor on yourself while standing in front of the bathroom mirror talking to yourself. Which then brings in my next Razor “you’re an idiot”, I’m going to try that one now.
Another thing about Ockham’s Razor is that the guy who wrote it was called William, he lived in small town called Ockham in England in the fourteenth century (that’s thirteen something). Shortly afterwards, Walter of Chatton proposed that William had got it all backwards and so he wrote Chatton’s Anti-Razor. The anti-razor didn’t prove to be so popular.
I know what you're thinking now, "you were just trying to help" should be Etterbeek's Razor, not Jake's Razor. You're right and it is very Belgian so why not?
We're going paint-balling now, in two teams from the office, so errmmm...
The End.
Joliet of Etterbeek
Friday, 8 June 2007
Sunday, 3 June 2007
Alien Invasive
A few weeks ago an alien worm-hole appeared next to my appartment balcony. It looks like a 6ft (1.8m) watery disc floating in the air, it's got furry dice hanging off the top so it may be a slightly down-market model. I've been using it to pop down to Anarkali and pick up a curry every now and then. The great thing is it moves through time and space so I can have tandoori chicken for breakfast even though Anarkali doesn't open till 6.30pm.
I soon realised the thing emits a high pitched whine whenever something's about to come through (I thinks it's one of Britney Spears'). So I've "posted" (blogging pun) a shovel next to it and whenever an alien is about to step onto my balcony, thwack! Back he goes. Thus the eternal universe remains in perfect balance, they stay in their bit and we stay in ours.
The other day I was bit slow off the mark, having spent the afternoon at the Portugese accross the road, one of the blighters got through. Damn! So there I am, in the middle of the second test at Edgebaston and woosh! there's this pale lanky bugger with sunken glazed-over eyes standing on my balcone. I thought, damn he really reminds me of someone, I must remember to get those Graspop tickets later. Not really knowing what the proper etiquette would be in this situation, I asked him in and offered him a cup of tea, he graciously accepted. I also offered him a Princes Chocolate bicuit but he declined that, just as well, the sell by date on those is Feb-07. That would've been really embarassing if he'd seen it.
I couldn't believe my luck, while I was making the tea Strauss had gone with England on 38, crap. I didn't want to be rude but I couldn't switch off at that moment so I just carried on watching it. Alien then perked up with "well why don't you use the worm-hole to go to the match?", I hate smartarses so I just gave the standard response "are you going to talk all the way through the game? I can just as well watch it down the pub you know". He didn't say a word until my phone went, it was my friend asking if I'd been to the Golf club to find about lessons and then the Alien started again "Oh, it's ok for your friends to call, you can talk to them, you've got time for them", now he was getting on my tits so I said "What's your problem? If I wasn't half cut I would've just beaten you back with a shovel like all the others, count yourself lucky you got a cup of tea".
Then he got into a strop and sulked off back into the worm-hole, didn't even finish his tea so I chucked it in after him along with the chocolate biscuit, "how's that? eh? Hope you choke on it, moody twat!"
I sat down to the cricket again and thought to myself "next Sunday I'm going to turn up at his place in the middle of Eastenders Omnibus and put my Slayer CD on, that'll teach him. Being a space traveller he's probably into Hawkwind"
Just as I was dozing off, he came back and tapped on the window. I let him in, we both apologised and sat down to glass of wine. Then he told me everything. Apparently the tea and biscuit landed, along with cricket based expletives, in 14th century Italy. Because of this unexpected tea break the rennaisance had never happened. "Listen carefully", he explained "right now, you are in a world where everything stops at 4pm for tea, the world sport is cricket and no one has ever heard of pasta or nouvelle cuisine and the French language died out 500 years ago"
I thought about this for a minute and asked "Are you saying I can walk down Georges Henri and get fish and chips with vinegar and ask for it in English", he said it was true except Georges Henri is called George Henry. "What about Girlfriend?", "Yes, she speaks the Queens English, but she still doesn't understand Cricket, that's more of a man/woman thing than any cutural or language difference".
"It's up to you Jake, I can bring back the tea and biscuit and you go back to ordering dinner by pointing at the menu, or you can live in world where Crown Green Bowles is played in France instead of Pétanque". It was an interesting proposition. "But why are you calling me by my blog name?" I asked him, he said he wasn't but he'd already read my next posting by using the worm-hole so I only thought he'd called me Jake because I was writing the post retrospectively from the future. "Oh, er more wine?", "Don't mind if I do, ta"
I thought long and hard about his proposition, "No cute foriegn accent for Girlfriend?", "Nope".
"What about the Mercedes?", "Sorry, you'll be driving a Ford C230", that hurt.
"Sony LCD TV?", "Asia is mostly the same so you keep the Sony TV, but there's no soft porn on the European channels". This was getting harder to swallow.
"Opera?", "Nope, it's Pantomime", I thought I could probably live with that and I assumed I'd still have the important things like HP Sauce and baked beans. I asked him I if could just try it for a day or two but he said as soon as I made contact with someone there would be no going back, it gets too complicated. What would be the point if Girlfriend doesn't look at me blankly when I say things like "It's a bit nippy innit?". She wouldn't be the same. Reluctanly I asked the Alien to retrieve the tea and biscuit.
I poured another glass of wine and it suddenly occurred to me the wine bottle still had a French label on it. The Alien stood at the worm-hole grinning and flicking V's at me "Suckerrrr!!!". Bastard! he was stringing me along! I grabbed the shovel but he dived into the worm-hole before I could get to him.
Bonne nuit.
JJ
I soon realised the thing emits a high pitched whine whenever something's about to come through (I thinks it's one of Britney Spears'). So I've "posted" (blogging pun) a shovel next to it and whenever an alien is about to step onto my balcony, thwack! Back he goes. Thus the eternal universe remains in perfect balance, they stay in their bit and we stay in ours.
The other day I was bit slow off the mark, having spent the afternoon at the Portugese accross the road, one of the blighters got through. Damn! So there I am, in the middle of the second test at Edgebaston and woosh! there's this pale lanky bugger with sunken glazed-over eyes standing on my balcone. I thought, damn he really reminds me of someone, I must remember to get those Graspop tickets later. Not really knowing what the proper etiquette would be in this situation, I asked him in and offered him a cup of tea, he graciously accepted. I also offered him a Princes Chocolate bicuit but he declined that, just as well, the sell by date on those is Feb-07. That would've been really embarassing if he'd seen it.
I couldn't believe my luck, while I was making the tea Strauss had gone with England on 38, crap. I didn't want to be rude but I couldn't switch off at that moment so I just carried on watching it. Alien then perked up with "well why don't you use the worm-hole to go to the match?", I hate smartarses so I just gave the standard response "are you going to talk all the way through the game? I can just as well watch it down the pub you know". He didn't say a word until my phone went, it was my friend asking if I'd been to the Golf club to find about lessons and then the Alien started again "Oh, it's ok for your friends to call, you can talk to them, you've got time for them", now he was getting on my tits so I said "What's your problem? If I wasn't half cut I would've just beaten you back with a shovel like all the others, count yourself lucky you got a cup of tea".
Then he got into a strop and sulked off back into the worm-hole, didn't even finish his tea so I chucked it in after him along with the chocolate biscuit, "how's that? eh? Hope you choke on it, moody twat!"
I sat down to the cricket again and thought to myself "next Sunday I'm going to turn up at his place in the middle of Eastenders Omnibus and put my Slayer CD on, that'll teach him. Being a space traveller he's probably into Hawkwind"
Just as I was dozing off, he came back and tapped on the window. I let him in, we both apologised and sat down to glass of wine. Then he told me everything. Apparently the tea and biscuit landed, along with cricket based expletives, in 14th century Italy. Because of this unexpected tea break the rennaisance had never happened. "Listen carefully", he explained "right now, you are in a world where everything stops at 4pm for tea, the world sport is cricket and no one has ever heard of pasta or nouvelle cuisine and the French language died out 500 years ago"
I thought about this for a minute and asked "Are you saying I can walk down Georges Henri and get fish and chips with vinegar and ask for it in English", he said it was true except Georges Henri is called George Henry. "What about Girlfriend?", "Yes, she speaks the Queens English, but she still doesn't understand Cricket, that's more of a man/woman thing than any cutural or language difference".
"It's up to you Jake, I can bring back the tea and biscuit and you go back to ordering dinner by pointing at the menu, or you can live in world where Crown Green Bowles is played in France instead of Pétanque". It was an interesting proposition. "But why are you calling me by my blog name?" I asked him, he said he wasn't but he'd already read my next posting by using the worm-hole so I only thought he'd called me Jake because I was writing the post retrospectively from the future. "Oh, er more wine?", "Don't mind if I do, ta"
I thought long and hard about his proposition, "No cute foriegn accent for Girlfriend?", "Nope".
"What about the Mercedes?", "Sorry, you'll be driving a Ford C230", that hurt.
"Sony LCD TV?", "Asia is mostly the same so you keep the Sony TV, but there's no soft porn on the European channels". This was getting harder to swallow.
"Opera?", "Nope, it's Pantomime", I thought I could probably live with that and I assumed I'd still have the important things like HP Sauce and baked beans. I asked him I if could just try it for a day or two but he said as soon as I made contact with someone there would be no going back, it gets too complicated. What would be the point if Girlfriend doesn't look at me blankly when I say things like "It's a bit nippy innit?". She wouldn't be the same. Reluctanly I asked the Alien to retrieve the tea and biscuit.
I poured another glass of wine and it suddenly occurred to me the wine bottle still had a French label on it. The Alien stood at the worm-hole grinning and flicking V's at me "Suckerrrr!!!". Bastard! he was stringing me along! I grabbed the shovel but he dived into the worm-hole before I could get to him.
Bonne nuit.
JJ
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