superheroes and fish murderers
Volare
Sat 14 Nov 2009 14:03
marina is a bit of a musician and plays in an Irish band. Last night he
invited us to a bar in town where they were playing and we had a brilliant
evening bashing out the rhythm on the table, or whatever came to hand. And
to make the perfect evening, there was Guinness on draught, which went
down very well, although it was a bit pricey. We got home about 2am, well
past my bed time.
The other day I sent an Email to an ex-colleague who is still Working for
a Safer London, but it was sent back as ‘undeliverable’ by someone
glorying in the name of ‘Web Marshall’, whose purpose is to act as
guardian of all our morals. ‘Web Marshall’ is the Metropolitan Police’s
answer to comic book character ‘Clark Kent’ and his particular super power
is to have every one of his senses finely tuned to detect the slightest
profanity. Ever vigilant and alert, Webbie had found the word ‘cock’ in my
Email and had returned it with the stern instruction to ‘clean it up’. I
did this in the time-honoured way of changing it to ‘c*ck’ and our super
hero (vigilant, but not very bright) waved it through.
It made me realise how glad I was to be away from all this nonsense. When
I too was Working for a Safer London, I remember any Email we sent out had
yards of rubbish at the foot of the page about how we believed in equal
opportunities, didn’t believe in swearing and only bought free range eggs.
It usually took up more space than the actual message, nobody read it and
it served absolutely no useful purpose.
It got me wondering whether Web Marshall chaired a monthly meeting at New
Scotland Yard of a Rude W*rds Committee, who had the grave duty of
deciding which words were likely to corrupt our morals. Every so often,
the list of obscenities would have to be reviewed and I was thinking of
offering my services as a consultant, in order to serve the community and
augment my meagre pension. What a great job!! Down to the Feathers at
lunchtime for a few sherbets and then up to the committee room to discuss
which words to add to the list. And it would be an ever-changing landscape
of profanities, since the sad little gaggle of suburban matrons and senior
busybodies round the table would have to consider whether, for example,
different spellings would be allowed. What about the word about ‘bollox’,
or a foreign equivalent of ‘bollox’? It’s a serious consideration.
If I were the superhero Web Marshall, I would start the meeting with a
free-thinking session in which everybody would have to shout out rude
words. This would be a good way of uncovering infiltrators, since the
infiltrator would be the one at the end of the table reduced to helpless
laughter. This person could be evicted and the serious business of
protecting all our morals could begin. When I worked for the company with
the rotating box, I discovered that our super hero had not penetrated
every bit of the system and many of my computer passwords were
obscenities. This not only helped me to remember them, but it also gave me
a little surge of illicit pleasure every time I logged on. There’s nothing
like a surge of illicit pleasure to help you get through your HOLMES
referrals.
Tonight we are going into town to see Mario do his stuff at a different
venue and I am looking forward to it immensely. We are also going up to
the Teatrolirico to get tickets for a piano recital that will include some
Chopin pieces that I’ve never heard played live and next weekend there is
the three day jazz festival only 10 minutes’ walk away so there’s plenty
here for music lovers.
The fish murderer I described in my last is still a regular visitor to the
marina, creeping about mysteriously with his spiked broomstick. However,
it seems that he has a rival, because someone saw a dolphin cruising about
in the marina the other morning, looking for his breakfast! It must be a
hellish life to be a fish, waiting to be speared or eaten alive and ever
fearful of taking a bite at a passing morsel.
That’s all folks. Going home four weeks on Tuesday and looking forward to
a good old English Ruby Murray...marvellous!