Poor old Alexander the Great passed away recently. He has featured on here before. His was a brief candle, though it burned only at one end (the end where you're trying to watch a movie and he's making a god-awful incessant racket on his plastic wheel) and he will be sadly missed. I feel a little culpable, in that he may have starved to death. It's hard to be sure really, as he would (as is normal, I hear) hoard his food in his nest amongst his own shit and piss, so his food bowl was frequently empty. He was not easy to tame and would bite the bejesus out of your fingers at every opportunity, so that my kids took to wearing Marigolds while playing with him.Anyway, I endeavoured to bury him yesterday, but after about 2 weeks of constant sun, the ground had hardened to iron. I only had a stick - and a slender one at that. It didn't seem appropriate to use one of the kids' beach spades while they were watching, and this also negated my first plan which was to tip him along with the stinking contents of his cage (somehow a large blowfly had managed to get in there) into the palladins outside the flat. I therefore reverted to my druidic heritage and made a stone cairn, decorated with a silver screw from someone's bike I think. I also painstakingly etched his name into a piece of slate, but it pissed down overnight and my efforts were erased. Though the cairn still stood! My fears of foxes, cats, feral wolf kidults from Islington, etc. went unrealised.
So farewell Alexander. Never again.
I also bought myself a new MFD, which certainly gave what The Sun used to call VFM, though no doubt I will be grabbed by the consumables in the end. A couple of years ago, I bought an Epson Photo Deluxe Ultra-Shit 2.3 or something and it cost me somewhere in the region of £80. The one I bought today is an HP Photosmart 4280 and includes scanner, copier and printer. Not only that, but it has 11 (count 'em!) different memory card slots.
Cost? £44.99! Toner cartridges are approx. £40 the pair. Problem: the better the printer, the more you print. The damned cartridges are the same size and design as a referee's whistle, though I couldn't find a pea in there. I assume therefore that they won't last very long. Not even as long as Alexander.
7 comments:
My sincere condolences to you and your family at this time of official mourning. But why wasn't Alexander buried in an indestructable sarcophagus inside his own personal mountain? That's what I`m getting.
R.I.P. me ol' mate, see you in the next world, which looks like one o' Van Gough's an' no mistake!
By the way, I don' think much of your etchin' skills if it comes off in the bleedin' rain!
A very sad time for all. I said a little prayer for A. this morning. There will be a book of condolence open on the riverbank for any who wish to sign (from 2pm.).
By the way, I imagine the blowfly cleverly entered the cage through the bars.
My prayers are with you at this trying time.
By the way, can the ground ACTUALLY harden to IRON just from the effects of the sun? I've never seen such a thing in India and I've lived here for millions of years.
Just to clear things up... I actually entered the cage by manipulating the catch on top. Everyone was asleep, so I knew I wouldn't be caught. Sadly, by the time I made it to the sawdust floor, I pegged it. Me and Alex are going for a celestial beer later, just to prove Rene Descartes wrong. Cheers!
Can I come?
Mr Ganesh's rat, I have to advise you that - yes - it is possible for the ground to harden to iron, provided that a quantity of quicksilver is added and the correct incantations are spake over the sod in question. Happy to run you through it some time.
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