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Les passagers d'un vol sont assis à leur place et attendent le décollage...

Bientôt, deux hommes entrent dans l'avion, en uniforme de pilote.

Ils portent des lunettes noires. L'un d'eux est accompagné d'un chien pour aveugle et l'autre tâte son chemin à l'aide d'une canne blanche.

Ils avancent dans l'allée, entrent dans la cabine de pilotage et referment la porte

Plusieurs passagers rient nerveusement et tous se regardent avec une expression allant de la surprise à la peur ou au scepticisme, certains cherchent les caméras cachées.

Quelques instants plus tard, les moteurs de l'avion s'allument et l'avion prend de la vitesse sur la piste.

Il va de plus en plus vite et ne semble jamais devoir décoller.

Les passagers regardent par les hublots et réalisent que l'avion se dirige tout droit vers le lac qui se trouve en bout de piste.

L'avion roule maintenant très vite sur la piste et plusieurs voyageurs réalisent qu'ils ne décolleront jamais et qu'ils vont tous plonger dans le lac.

Les cris des passagers apeurés remplissent alors l'avion, mais à ce moment, l'avion décolle tout doucement, sans problème.

Les passagers se remettent alors de leurs émotions, rient, se sentant stupides d'avoir été roulés par cette mauvaise plaisanterie.

Quelques minutes plus tard, l'incident est oublié.

Dans la cabine de pilotage, le pilote tâte le tableau de bord, trouve le bouton du pilote automatique et le met en fonction.

Il dit ensuite au copilote :
- Tu sais ce qui me fait peur ?
- Non, répond l'autre.
- Un de ces jours, ils vont crier trop tard et on va tous mourir...

Merci Balaj :@)

Iron
Carl Sandburg

Guns,
Long, steel guns,
Pointed from the war ships
In the name of the war god.

Straight, shining, polished guns,
Clambered over with jackies in white blouses,
Glory of tan faces, tousled hair, white teeth,
Laughing lithe jackies in white blouses,
Sitting on the guns singing war songs, war chanties.

Shovels,
Broad, iron shovels,
Scooping out oblong vaults,
Loosening turf and leveling sod.

I ask you
To witness-
The shovel is brother to the gun.

The Sentry
by Wilfred Owen

We'd found an old Boche dug-out, and he knew,
And gave us hell, for shell on frantic shell
Hammered on top, but never quite burst through.

Rain, guttering down in waterfalls of slime
Kept slush waist high, that rising hour by hour,
Choked up the steps too thick with clay to climb.

What murk of air remained stank old, and sour
With fumes of whizz-bangs, and the smell of men
Who'd lived there years, and left their curse in the den,
If not their corpses....

There we herded from the blast
Of whizz-bangs, but one found our door at last.
Buffeting eyes and breath, snuffing the candles.

And thud! flump! thud! down the steep steps came thumping
And splashing in the flood, deluging muck -
The sentry's body; then his rifle, handles
Of old Boche bombs, and mud in ruck on ruck.

We dredged him up, for killed, until he whined
"O sir, my eyes - I'm blind - I'm blind, I'm blind!"
Coaxing, I held a flame against his lids
And said if he could see the least blurred light
He was not blind; in time he'd get all right.

"I can't," he sobbed.

Eyeballs, huge-bulged like squids
Watch my dreams still; but I forgot him there
In posting next for duty, and sending a scout
To beg a stretcher somewhere, and floundering about
To other posts under the shrieking air.

Those other wretches, how they bled and spewed,
And one who would have drowned himself for good, -
I try not to remember these things now.

Let dread hark back for one word only: how
Half-listening to that sentry's moans and jumps,
And the wild chattering of his broken teeth,
Renewed most horribly whenever crumps
Pummelled the roof and slogged the air beneath -
Through the dense din, I say, we heard him shout
"I see your lights!" But ours had long died out.

The Man He Killed
by Thomas Hardy (1915)

Had he and I but met
By some old ancient inn,
We should have sat us down to wet
Right many a nipperkin!

But ranged as infantry,
And staring face to face,
I shot at him as he at me,
And killed him in his place.

I shot him dead because—
Because he was my foe,
Just so: my foe of course he was;
That’s clear enough; although

He thought he’d ’list, perhaps,
Off-hand like—just as I—
Was out of work—had sold his traps—
No other reason why.

Yes; quaint and curious war is!
You shoot a fellow down
You’d treat, if met where any bar is,
Or help to half-a-crown.

November 2008

I knocked it off, i knocked it off ...

For the first time in ages i've actually had, low and behold, a 'nice' day at work

Not only because i've managed to arrange things so that i'm only working for two days this week, but also because Fluffy and Marge, la deuxième couille, are both off (Fluffy's gone to Berlin to celebrate the fall of the wall and Marge has booked a weeks holiday)

Which means that BoyIdiot was left 'managing' things ...

He managed, at any rate, to give one of the planners the rest of the week off without telling her two colleagues

Who's going to open and close the boutique this week ?

"Shitty death" said BI, when he'd realised what he'd done

As ever willing to help out as i am, i proposed the following : yours truly will open tomorrow, as long as he (BI) signs a holiday chit for me to take off this coming thursday and friday ...

An offer that BI just couldn't refuse :)

The Jam - That's entertainement

The joy of six .... alternative forms of amusement (I)

Where do i begin with what will probably turn out to be my méa culpa for sins past ?

-Sticking straws up a frog's bum, then blowing really hard until a satisfying stickily explosion of gore ensues ?

-Tying fireworks to a puppy dog's tail and watching the poor pooch desperately scrambling of into the deepest dark of an uncharitable winters' night before it becomes at one with the stratosphere ?

-How about if i said : 'There's nothing better at the crack of dawn than the chorus of a squirming hessian sack, sumptiously filled with helpless, mewling kittens, on their way to meet their maker at the bottom of an old well ?

Hmm ....

I have to confess, ô faithfull (all be-it intermittant) reader of one, that these barbaric acts are only the fruit of my ill-conceived trawlings through the lower nether regions of the british tabloïd press

My own (mis)doings were inches short of a borstal demanding nature

To whit, then, i stand before thee, moistened of eye and head bowed in shame, accused of:

Scrumping apples and pears and plums and radishes and brussell sprouts and potatoes ... all willfully and knowingly taken from the local vicar's garden 10 avé marias duly said :$

But why in heavens STEAL from the parish vicar, one might ask.

Poverty ?
A shameful lack of fresh fruit and veg at home ?
A burning need to defy the church and it's emissaries ?

Well, actually

No !

The reply is a bit more prosaic: my friends and i had this game, a game called 'burn off' where we had to circle each other on our bikes (all categories included : BMX's, racers's, Tomahawks, Lola's etc) and force an opponent to put one foot on the ground

After a while we all became aces at this little lark and so decided to incorporate 'aids' into the 'making-the-other-fall-off' part of the festivities
Sure, we started off small time with tennis balls, lobbed at the head of the other, eventually footballs were allowed as long as long as only the body was aimed for, mud bombs were also allowed (after much consultation between 'clans')

*Batons, tennis rackets and cricket bats being adjudged as to being un-sportsman like

Subsequently, after accords being signed in blood, we started to play 'Death burn off' or Roller ball for kids, if you prefer

It was the same as normal burn off but with the added thrill of trying to maim and injure your neighbourhood 'friend' with stolen (rock hard) root vegetables

Hence the raid into the said priest's un-protected garden of free-for-all

The Jam - Going underground

The joy of six .... alternative forms of amusement (II)

What else to did we get upto, on the cusp of adolescence and staying out late after kerfew ?

Well (rubs finger guiltily around shirt collar), at the time we thought that running around the neighbourhood, jumping into back gardens and breaking washing lines was pretty innocent.

I wouldn't say that we targeted specific gardens more than others, but it's fair to admit that we opted for the ones that were easy to enter with low walls, gates that had well oiled hinges and were attatched to houses that had an elderly occupant who didn't have a vicous dog with sharp teeth (poodles and tekels were small fry)

In the same spirit, we also took to using privet hedges as our own trampoline whereby we'd spy a hedge on the way home from school, check out the best escape route 'just in case', then, once it was suitably dark, we'd set about our fun : gloriously diving onto the sponge-like bush.

Points would be awarded for the best and most fearless dive, with a headfirst dive rating a 5, a backwards flop worth a 3 and full 'Star Splash' worth a 8 or a 10 if the bush was 'risky' ie : backed up by a brick wall or leading directly into a garden or (the most deadly) just under a living room window and so in full 'view' to the occupants.

After a few months of bouncing on all things springy, we decided to spice things up with an iron man style challenge:

Who would be the quickest to run around the block with an obstacle course consisting of three broken washing lines, two hedges, a climb onto the roof of Mr Wheeler's garage then jumping from there onto the tree in Mr Woodman's garden then over his wall and onto the shed of Mr Bates ... and so on

I think we must have played this game on and off for about two months ...

... for about two months until we were well and truly rumbled

Rumbled big time, when the seven of us (the two Steves, Sean, Chris, Darrel, Martin and yours truly) got whacked

We'd thought hard about our new course: we wanted a challenge

We'd carefully considered the order of things and who'd start, who'd be the spotter for each run, who'd be the official time keeper (Mikaela, the only girl .. but she was 'little' Steeve's sister, so she didn't count)

We set off on the first run at about seven on a chilly winters evening with Darrel, the youngest, all guns blazing.

He'd made good progress, had Darrel, for someone with short legs, right upto the challenge in Missus Coombes' back yard.

As his spotter, Chris had the unfortunate vanatge point of seeing Darrel take a running jump ... then ... *phwannnngggg* ... he was caterpulted straight up into the air, landed in heap in the dirt with cut lip and his two front teeth 'en moins'

Missus Coombes' son had had enough of changing her washing line every sunday morning and so had replaced the standard nylon one with another in 3mm thick cable ...

Just like dominoes falling, one by one, porch lights came on and front doors opened in response to Darrel's catterwaling

People came out and in a hue and cry worthy of any Dickens novel, dragged Darrel and Chris off to confront their parents (and subsequently to the A&E for Darrel)

And me ?

*Scritch scritch* I was already on my run , was running like the wind, was well inside 'the time' and only had to jump into Mr Witham's hedge for an easy 3 points.

I jumped.
Mr Witham's garage door went *kreeeeek*
Mr Witham was out of his trap
And ....
"They're off"

Sean's already up and over the nearest garden wall wall, off to safety

Me ...

Well, i guess i must've made about fifty yards before old man Witham caught me and started to whack me with his flashlight.

To this day, i'm not convinced that he was giving me a 'good seing to', it was more for show - more about putting the frightners on, as it were

Whatever, as i was cowering on the ground, with the blows raining in and the neighbours pouring out in a true wild west lynch mob stylie ('Gwaaaan do 'im') i could feel my legs becoming warmer and warmer, as if i was lowering myself into a luke warm bath ...

Once dragged back to the Witham house hold :
'Mauuu-reeeeeen, call the police'
'John, don't you think the boy's had enough for one night, look', she said pointing 'the boy's peed in his pants'
'S'not enough'

Never -the-less, i was off scot free, much chastened and highly embarassed

The Stranglers - Golden brown

The joy of six .... alternative forms of entertainement (III)

Of a much less offensive order, we used to indulge in water fights ,even in the middle of January (!!) but one of our favorite games was mudfights

We'd spend whole summer mornings preparing our 'arms' (sloppy mudballs, sausages on sticks, buckets of mud mixed with cat pee !!!)

What glee and joy to be had thinking about how i was going to filthy-up Steeve, Darrel or Chris (my next door neighbour)

Generally, we'd wait until the end of the childrens t.v programs before settling down to getting 'tooled up'

Me : 'Whatcha got Chris ?'
Chris : 'Ah haaa! That'd be tellin' .. lets's just say that a fair bit of rabbit crap is involved; And you ?'
Me : 'i've got a Tiddles special on the go'
Chris : 'ohhhh that's bad'
Me : 'héhéhé'

And so, until midday, each camp would prepare it's arsenal whereupon, in the spirit of Christmas 1914, we'd all gather together to play football in our version of no-mans land d until about 2pm when we'd decide who'd be on which team

3pm was KICK OFF

Whereupon, and with no sound of warning, a deluge of turd smelling mud bombs would descend from all directions into our backyards (collateral damage being unknown at that time)

Sure, there were prohibited stones in some bombs and there was a fair share of infected cuts and puscilanimous skin erruptions, but all was fair and square in war and .. uhh ... war :)

Until the day when my ma had hung out the washing ...

Washing which mainly comprised of my father's work shirts ...

Or rather, my father was in the Navy ...

...'Navy Whites' are so-called for a reason ...

The reason being that they are immaculately white

One serious scolding later and The Mud Wars came to a Treaty of Versailles truce

There's a fair bit of stressedoutness going on at WorldCorp just now,what with the end of timesthe year with it's usual lot of end of year training projects to set up, last years' figures to catch up on aaaannd ...

.... and a new all-improved management checklist that Fluffy has to scrupulously fill out at the end of each month

One protocole out of many that Fluffy is having kittens about concerns non-conformity of the decor : all non WorldCorp paraphenalia is henceforth banned

Lordy,What's he going to do for Christmas decorations if he risks being sanctioned for turning the place into a tacky looking gin palace ?