I was threatened with physical violence and being expelled from work today when in a discussion about dead comedians I said:
How did Tommy Cooper die? Just like that!
Which was very funny and made most of us fall about. They weren't really going to hit me, I could tell they were joking because they were laughing a lot as well. Really, it was much funnier at the time than it may seem written here.
I think my favourite comedian's death was that of the late, great Rod Hull. He fell off his roof whilst trying to fix his satellite dish in a gale. Or similar. At the time, it was a tragic loss for British comedy, but now I think with the benefit of retrovision, he can say that it's the way he would have wanted to go. Except he won't say that because of the deadness he suffered. Since Rod's death, his beloved Emu has been seen very rarely in public. I've heard rumours that Emu also died that day, but I am unable to confirm them.
I described Rod Hull there as being "late" ie dead. However, if I were talking about someone who died a longer time away (eg Isaac Newton, Benjamin Disraeli, or Errol Flynn) we don't describe them as "late". Euphemisms are not needed and we instead speak of them as being "dead", "rotting", "decayed" or "who?".
I therefore surmise that there must be a point at which a goner moves from being late to being just dead and gone. It's clearly a longer time than a year, but equally clearly it's less than 100 years. This gives quite a big grey area for me. John Peel is definitely still late. So is Douglas Adams. How about Kurt Cobain? He died over ten years ago and I'm not sure whether he's still late or not. I'd be interested in your thoughts on this.
But enough of this morbidity!
I saw a fantastically placed apostrophe in a job application form today:
"Mathematic's Society"
I know I sometimes get them wrong too, if only through typing too fast and not properly reviewing what I've written, but that doesn't mean that I ca'nt take the piss out of others when they make bads :-)
Enough! Bye!
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8 comments:
I think that your Tommy Cooper joke was very funny. Had I been there, I would have laughed.
At work today I was the victim of viscious verbal abuse because I refused to waive an MVR. This rather annoyed me, so I politely put the phone down and sent him an e-mail confirming my reasons for not waiving the MVR and my last point was along the lines of:
"I would rather you did not make personal attacks on me. I recall you said I was a "typical uncaring actuary". Please never speak to me again in that way".
Difficult to know what to do in that situation.
Best thing to do when faced with abuse: smile.
I did smile, but he couldn't see that because he was on the phone from Guernsey.
Don't think I have ever spoken to anyone from Guernsey before, or indeed any of the Channel Islands.
Think I would have said that it was a tautology as Actuaries have to take courses in being uncaring. Irony would have gone over him
If you like regular badgers (www.badgerbadgerbadger.com), try seeing the badgers play soccer/football (www.footballbadgers.com).
Ahhhh a snake!
Dare I say that you missplaced an apostrophe yourself, or will I make a huge ass out of myself because I was the only one who wasn't aware of the fact that it was intentional?
Well?
Cheers
I'm going to go out on a limb and state that the only incorrect apostrophe in this post was the one in ca'nt, which was most certainly intentional. There may be some debate around the one in "favourite comedian's death". It is slightly ambiguous - I am not talking about the death of my favourite comedian. Instead I refer to my favourite death of a comedian.
D'oh!
Cheers
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