The connection between Emma, a disc jockey and the Titanic.
I was waiting in our local airport with some other rather nervous passengers, and felt like a vit of amusement, so I stood up, brandishing my white cane and announced: "Hello. I am your pilot for this flight. You have no need to worry as I anm fully trained, and the plane has been specially modified to take account of my visual handicap. All the controls are in braille and I have a talking altimeter. Yes, I can tell what you are thinking - `How does he know when we are nearing the end of the runway?' There I use sound. When I hear the passengers start shouting `Bloody Hell!' I know it is time to pull the stick back."
I had a market researcher ask me once what hobbies I had. I replied: "Parachute jumping." She asked how I knew when I was about to hit the ground, to which I replied: "Easy. When the dog's harness goes slack I prepare for landing."
I was in a pub the other day and my guide dog lifted his leg and peed down my leg. I bent down and started touching the dog. My neighbour said: "I know you blind people are very fond of your dogs, but why on earth are you stroking him after he did that? I replied: "I'm not stroking him. I am just trying to find his head so I can kick his teeth in!"
I asked Tiger Woods to play me a round of golf. He was reluctant but when I had increased the stakes sufficiently he said: "OK When do you want to play?" "Any night you like."
TiddyOgg 03 98
Message text written by Mickey Modern >Emma are you any relation to Pete Tong? [British disc jockey.] < Hi, Mickey, None of my family has any appreciation of music, and most of them are tone-deaf, so there is a high probability that he is a relation. You may have read in my Ditty Box #6 (file edb6.txt) of the exploits of my great uncle Alistair. Before he started on his ill-fated trip to India his long-suffering wife gave birth to a son, Graeme. He was a strange boy and played the euphonium in an all-girl band, until his correct sex was discovered during a routine beard inspection. He then ran off with a lesbian pole-vaulter called Germaine Hamma. It was not a very happy relationship, they were always going at each other Hamma and Tongs. But the abbove Pete could have been a product of this alliance. By the way, Graeme took after his father and was keen on exploring dark damp places, but with the police on his trail he set off in search of the North Pole. After a few wrong turnings - most famous was his delusion that of proclaiming his success while navigating Hemem Hempstead High Street - he got most of the way there. He then got stranded on an iceberg and was killed when some lunatic in an ocean liner rammed it. Emma.
Three catering college graduates, Tom, Dick, and Harry, each decided to set up shop in a new shopping mall. Each specialised as follows - Tom called his shop The Soup Kitchen, Dick's was Dick's Curry House, and Harry called his, with equal imagination, Harry's Doughnuts. Well, as I'm sure you will surmise, three fast-food shops in one small shopping mall could not hope to prosper and Tom and Dick soon merged their two enterprises under the name - Soup & Curry. They now did better, but Harry was still struggling. Despite an innovative filling for his doughnuts made by emulsifying cream and strawberry jam, and despite its popularity, he was a poor businessman and was soon forced to close leaving large debts. To save him from bankruptcy his two friends bought Harry's only asset, a huge vat of his doughnut filling. They did not know what to do with it so they stored it in the back of their shop and forgot about it. Soup & Curry's business thrived, and Tom and Dick prepared to move to larger premises. It was only then that the doughnut filling was rediscovered. It had solidified but with a flash of inspiration Tom decided it would make an excellent lipstick. So they marketed it, from the shop, under a fancy French name that no-one could pronounce. They managed to get Julie Andrews to open their new store, as she had been a customer of all three enterprises in their early days, and they gave her a free sample of their "French" lipstick, whereupon she burst out into singing: "Soup and Curry's froggy lipstick tastes like Harry's doughnuts."
Dear Agony Aunt, As independence day is fast approaching, and I am nearly at the end of the one wit that I possess, I beseech your assistance. Each year I open the box of fireworks, and being extremely safety conscious, read the instructions carefully. Each firework contains the warning: NEVER RETURN TO A FIREWORK ONCE LIT. I have been having firework parties for the past ten years, and originally I set off the display at the very foot of the garden. The following year, not being permitted to return to the site of the previous year's display by the above instruction, I ignited the fireworks some ten feet from the bottom of the garden. Each year therefore I have had to hold the display nearer the house and now can no longer get out of my back door without encroaching too closely to the fireworks. Can you please offer some advice as how to reach the garden as I am now desperate, because the toilet in my primitive hovel is at the end of it. Yours Sincerely, Emma.
Prejudice against the differently sized.
Hi, Frank. I was very interested to read your warnings on the dangers of midgets. We in Europe have suffered from them for centuries. The problem with finding them is that they are so good at public relations. As you say, their moon faces always have such charming smiles. (Am I the only one to realise that Britain's prime minister, Tony Blair, is one of the tallest midgets in the world?) You quoted some of the ways that Hollywood has been duped into showing their side of things, but long before the film industry was invented they were infiltrating into literature, and perverting our children's view of these Untermenschen. Take the classic fairy tale of Snow White, the true version being, of course, that this innocent young girl was lured away from her loving step-mother by a bunch of sex-crazed midgets with promises of diamonds from their own mine - surely an utter lie. When her frantic mother came searching for her they drugged her with a poisoned apple and who knows what degraded practices they carried out on her inert body, glistening whitely in the moonlight ... Then there is the story of Hansel and Gretel. Surely it is obvious from these outlandish names that they were midgets, not normal children. The truth behind their story is that they went marauding through the woods on their disgustingly small legs and, I am continually pressing the British government to erecrt fences, thirty inches high at all entry points to the UK, and forbidding entry to anybody who can not step over it, which I feel is a most cost-effective way of deterring the critters, but, as mentioned above, as parliament is led by one, there seems little likelihood of anything being implemented. This fence would of course prohibit wheelchairs entering the country, but my view is that a wheelchair is an excellent disguise for covering up the occupant's lack of height, and most wheelchair users are probably midgets anyway.I believe that midgets are an alien life form, so I urge you to marshall all your resources in the NMR to ensure that the asteroid recently reported to be heading this way, and clearly is really a midget invasion force, to prepare your defences. I will do the same with the Dwarf and Midget Negation International Taskforce (DAMNIT. Emma Tong.
Farewell message from Emma Tong. Emma’s Flight of Fancy. Watch This Space! (or E.t. come home.) This may be the last time you hear from me, as I have just got the job of co-pilot on the Irish Space Mission. My colleague, Paddy O’Loughran has had great experience of high altitude, being previously a scaffolder onsuch jobs as London’s Millenium dome, and I used to be a stewardess with a big airline. I would walk down the aisle in my mini-skirt asking if passengers wanted some of my TWA coffee, but most of the men were more interested in my TWA tea. We are aiming to be the first humans to visit the sun. (Don’t worry about us getting an excess of sunburn, we will go at night.) The spaceship’s propulsion system is quite unique: the initial launch momentum will be achieved by inserting the vessel into one of the chimneys of Ballylumford power station, cradled in a stretched rubber harness, which is released to catapult us into the stratosphere, whereupon our main engine will take over. This engine which comes from a scrap Nissan pick-up has been modified, of course, and now is fuelled by either peat, (which Ireland has in abundance,) or Guinness beer (ditto.) Actually it is from a very old vehicle, before the company changed its name, so if the gearbox blows up it may well rain Datsun cogs.
While discussing our route, we thought we might as well make the most of the trip and visit some of the planets en route. "What about Uranus?" I suggested. "Oh, that is all right, now I have used that asteroid cream," Paddy replied. "We had better stop off at Mars," I said. "We could go into one of those Mars bars to replenish our fuel supply." "And Venus," added Paddy. "My cousin went there and loved it. He said the streets were full of water. Unfortunately he nearly drowned while hitch-hiking." (How do you make a Venusian blind? Poke him in the eye-stalks!) We were trying to decide what to call ourselves: the Americans have astronauts, and the Russians have cosmonauts. It is quite a difficult job getting into the craft, so we decided to name ourselves monkeynauts. We are undergoing an intensive training programme: we have watched all the episodes of Star Trek and Red Dwarf, and I have even had my hair done up like Princess Whats’ername from Star Wars. Paddy has been practising holding a cigarette lighter to his mouth and calling "Beam me up, Emmy." I think he has got the hang of it, now, but he lost his mustache during some of his early tries when he pushed the button and set fire to his face. The name of the craft is Marjorie, after the designer’s girl friend. He says she is a real goer, but I think we are likely to finish up in her usual position - on our backs with our legs in the air, unless he has got his calculations right. Having watched Star Trek, we felt we must have a Scotsman as engineer, so we recruited Hamish McGonagall, the grandson of the famous poet. He looked at our on-board computers and sneered: "I see ye ha’e the Disney system." "Why do you call it that? I asked. "Because it disnae work!" he replied. People have asked us how we will pass the time, as it will take at least three months before we reach our first stop. Well, Paddy is making a model of a black hole out of matchsticks, and I will finish my novel - I AM A VERY SLOW READER. Hamish has read all the management manuals, and suggested we go hiking in the Welsh mountains as a bonding exercise. Actually he wanted to bond a bit too closely - he kept putting my hand on his sporran and showing me what was worn under the kilt. ("Nothing’s worn - it’s all in perfect working order.) It was very difficult keeping his hands off me - I think he may be a Klingon. We trekked up the Brecon Beacons and came to a cave. Paddy said he would go inside and see what was in there. He came rushing out again reporting that he had heard a voice calling: "Got you. Now I'm going to eat you!" Hamish said that he would go in and returned rapidly with the same story: a mysterious voice saying "Got you now, I'm going to eat you. Finally I went in - and saw a little boy picking his nose. Hamish has inherited his ancestor’s gift of verse and wrote this poem in commemoration of our forthcoming flight. Paddy and Em are off in June. They’re going way out past the moon. We'll not be seeing them again very soon, And if they come back at all it’s a boon.
They are going in the good ship Marjorie, Far above the land and the sea. They look very sad at parting from me, But wish very hard from this Earth to be free.
In a tin can powered by Guinness and peat, They hope to carry out this wondrous feat. I fear that on this trip their deaths they’ll meet, And ne'er again they'll hear the wee lambs bleat.
As you can guess these lines have filled us with the greatest confidence, and we are off to board the Marjorie at sunset.
Let us all get high, Emma.
· William McGonagall was a Scottish poet famed for his bad verse. His most famous poem was the Tay Bridge Disaster and I can recommend it heartily. · E.T.
Last updated: Wed, 15 Nov 2000.