11% Said 'I Don't Know'

Conspicuous Waste

"To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.”

- Bertrand Russell

The Right Of Way

The car honks. My right of way it says.

The bus honks. My right of way it says.

Then the car pulls ahead and brakes abruptly in front of the bus. It was my right of way it says.

It brakes abruptly in front of a bus full of people, wanting to make its point.

The bus brakes in turn and we -young, old, whatever- are all abruptly flung forward.

What the…?

I don’t know or care whose right of way it was but you don’t brake abruptly in front of a bus.

I don’t care how right or big or clever you are, if you brake abruptly in front of a bus then you are wrong and small and stupid.

Here’s an idea, if you want to show us how important it is that you have your right of way then why not try braking abruptly in front of a train? 

Why Is The Sea Salty?

'Hey Max, do you know why the sea is salty but a river isn't?'

'No, Max. Why are you asking me that?'

'Aren't you interested?'

'Well, I've got other things to focus on.'

'Like what?'

'You know, the daily stuff I need to do.'

'But don't you think it's a primary question?'

'My primary question at the moment is which price plan to choose for my mobile.' 

'Well, let me tell you: so over millions of years, the seas have been accumulating salt washed off the land by rain water as it finds its way via rivers, both above and below ground, back into the sea. So fresh water is actually salty too but the concentration of salt is too low for us to notice.'

'Do I need unlimited texts? I don't actually send that many...'

Fearing Empty Time

The Iraqi Communist Party

So I’m eating a falafel at the stand of the Iraqi Communist Party and I’m wondering how I came to be eating a falafel at the stand of the Iraqi Communist Party.

Well, the real reason is because I’m hungry.

The Portuguese Communist Party stand is selling some smelly fish and the Irish Communist Party stand only has beer.

I didn’t realise Iraq even had a Communist Party.

But a falafel is a falafel. It tastes okay, there are no tomatoes but I do note a Marxist-versus-theocratic-conflict spice.

The motto of the event, organized by the French left-wing paper L’Humanité, is Humans first.

Attendance is good due to the ongoing debt crisis and rising unemployment and growing inequality. Speaking of which, when is the new iPhone coming out?

Revolutionary Time

After the French Revolution, a decimal time system was put in place.
The day was divided into 10 hours, of 100 minutes each, of 100 seconds each.
So 1:23 wasn't 83 minutes long but 123 minutes.
The week was divided into ten days -but still only 1 day off- and the months were renamed.
The aim was to remove any royal and religious influence from the calendar.
The experiment didn't last long.
The decimal experiment that is, I think it's still too early to say on the Revolution experiment. (That's a Zhou Enlai gag...)