Oh dear, ludicrous mischief! I was awoken by a booming knock this morning at ten minutes to eleven. In my confusion I panicked - what was this strange noise, this strange place, I found myself in? It seemed that only seconds ago I was contentedly picking up a strangely infinite number of olive-monies from the cobbled Cuban floors of Mexico, Errol Flynn cheering me on and making suspicious comments about poppers and strange insertion practices that I could only assume where sporting in nature, as they certainly didn't sound pleasurable. Another knock, and another, and it struck me that I had been harshly awoken from another one of my indulgently Utopian dreams.
I pulled on my gown and saw to the door. A rather dishevelled human of one or the other gender grunted me a package, and I grunted back a signature. The eyes, they seemed male, but the expression of horror that wiped over them implied femininity to me. I closed the door over and turned back to my hall-way and looked in the mirror. An expression of horror that, in retrospect perhaps implied a hidden feminine innocence I never knew I possessed, wiped over my face. A segment of my functions, dangling low and to the left, was clearly visible.
I almost fainted in horror. Then all of a sudden my alarm-clock went off, and I can only presume it was the fright that tipped me over the edge.
After a few hours recovery time, some washing and some scrubbing, I remembered that I had not yet opened the parcel! What youthful ineptitude! I gleefully teared open the recently-delivered packages, ordered just four days ago on Margaret's internet. And so it was; just as I ordered, a compass, a calculator and a measuring-tape. I sat for a few minutes happily shaking the compass, and in doing so sending magnetic north thrashing from left to right, no doubt sinking ships the world across. Then it struck me; this was the wrong type of compass.
Of all the infantile mistakes I could make, this was the most likely. The sheer scale of the obvious probability of this particular calamity was at least mildly soothing to my scientific mind. Yes - If something had to go wrong, I suppose it would have to have been this. Also, I hadn't really thought of this before, but it isn't actually possible to bend a measuring-tape around a drawing of a circle and gain an accurate measurement. In the context of this day of travesties however, this set-back barely bothered my bottom belly-button.
Determined to make at least a little scientific head-way on this blackest of days, I resolved to draw round the vaguely-round compass with a pencil and analyse the circle-drawings. Of particular note I felt was the fact that it was more oval-shaped than circular, and had four little nubs around it which protruded (one for each day of the directions that there are). Also, it wasn't very easy to trace round. On several occasions my pencil skewed off the page, and on one particularly nightmarish venture the hand I was holding the compass still with slipped and I was unable to re-find its correct position in the context of my warped drawing. Infuriated with the days progress, I resolved to phone Doris and invite her out for a late lunch.
"Late?" She tittered, "Let's just call it supper!" And how right she was! In all my agonizing the day had befell me - it was almost ten at night. Never-the-less, Doris came round and we shared a platter of cheese she wisely thought to bring with her. We sat it on our knees together and watched a strong-man competition on the television, all close and together. She fell asleep after a while, her head rested against my shoulder. At that point, I woke her up and sent her off home so I could write up my day's science.
Wednesday
Monday
Day Five
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. Oh dear. On re-reading my pointless drink-prattle from two-days back, I must admit my instant reaction was to reach to tear the page from the record. But I cannot, for dishonesty in one's life is the first mincing step towards dishonesty in science. I can only hope that my indiscretion here will stand me firm in the annals of science as the epitome of honest-man and honest-scientist.
Incidentally, I have been I feel wholly re-affirmed in my decision to take pi as "three and three-twentieths" after a chance discovery that I made watching QI with Doris on christmas day. It transpires that if you take the first one-hundred and forty-four digits of pi in its traditional form, and add them all together, they equal six-hundred and sixty-six : the number of the beast! While I am not a religious man, I feel this deviance is certainly to be avoided, even in the face of evidence I learned from the exact same program which informed me that the biblical number of the beast is actually six-hundred and six-teen.
But this one iota of pleasant news can not account for the distinctive lack of science this last two days. Since my last update, I admit shamefully, all I have done is lay in bed hungover, alternating between states of sleepful serenity and wakeful despair. Luckily Doris has been on hand to replenish my bed-side glass of water at regular intervals, for if she was not I fear I may have died of dehydration for all the salt I have lost in crying. Doris remarked to me that the bosom of her upper-garment has become almost starched solid through my salty excretions these last thirty-six hours.
As an upside to this malady, I have at least managed not to creep any further into debt since christmas. However, I fear tomorrow will be a different story as I will be required quite certainly to telephone the Department for Science and Pensions to inquire of the progress of my grant-claim. With the advent of "0844"* numbers, I can only dread the damage this will do to my spending powers. I apologise only to myself, and also to the scientific community, for my failure to provide any serious scientific insights these last days, and can only console myself and the scientific community by assuring myself and them that I have set my alarm clock for eleven a.m. tomorrow, and intend upon performing some intensive science-researching.
One can only hope that the calculator, compass and measuring-tape that I have ordered will arrive now that the festive holidays are ended.
* I have allowed myself to use the numbers "0844" in digit form rather than in written form as I am merely quoting a telephone number. The alternative, which I can't help but see as "eight-hundred and forty-four" would fail to suitably inform the reader of what it was that I might have meant, I feel.
Incidentally, I have been I feel wholly re-affirmed in my decision to take pi as "three and three-twentieths" after a chance discovery that I made watching QI with Doris on christmas day. It transpires that if you take the first one-hundred and forty-four digits of pi in its traditional form, and add them all together, they equal six-hundred and sixty-six : the number of the beast! While I am not a religious man, I feel this deviance is certainly to be avoided, even in the face of evidence I learned from the exact same program which informed me that the biblical number of the beast is actually six-hundred and six-teen.
But this one iota of pleasant news can not account for the distinctive lack of science this last two days. Since my last update, I admit shamefully, all I have done is lay in bed hungover, alternating between states of sleepful serenity and wakeful despair. Luckily Doris has been on hand to replenish my bed-side glass of water at regular intervals, for if she was not I fear I may have died of dehydration for all the salt I have lost in crying. Doris remarked to me that the bosom of her upper-garment has become almost starched solid through my salty excretions these last thirty-six hours.
As an upside to this malady, I have at least managed not to creep any further into debt since christmas. However, I fear tomorrow will be a different story as I will be required quite certainly to telephone the Department for Science and Pensions to inquire of the progress of my grant-claim. With the advent of "0844"* numbers, I can only dread the damage this will do to my spending powers. I apologise only to myself, and also to the scientific community, for my failure to provide any serious scientific insights these last days, and can only console myself and the scientific community by assuring myself and them that I have set my alarm clock for eleven a.m. tomorrow, and intend upon performing some intensive science-researching.
One can only hope that the calculator, compass and measuring-tape that I have ordered will arrive now that the festive holidays are ended.
* I have allowed myself to use the numbers "0844" in digit form rather than in written form as I am merely quoting a telephone number. The alternative, which I can't help but see as "eight-hundred and forty-four" would fail to suitably inform the reader of what it was that I might have meant, I feel.
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