Nooks and iPods
Dear Boy.
Strange to admit but I'm starting to feel guilty about being rude to
George Bush. There's a piece of Whitehouse spin doing the rounds
at the moment that the POTUS is actually not as thick as he's painted.
Further, the story goes, his whole folksy, down-home shtick is just a
fiendishly clever way to placate the electorate and fool the liberal intelligensia
into lowering their guard. The ever useful Urban Legend archive at www.snopes.com/inboxer/hoaxes/presiq.htm
tells us that stories of George's stupidity are overrated. Though the
London Guardian printed the story, it is apparently untrue that academics
had measured the IQs of each US President by analysis of their published
words and found Dubya wanting.
The problem is, I don't believe a word of it. If I thought there was
a chance that he got home, pulled off his cowboy boots and engaged in
profound debate with his aides on matters of international moment then
I'd be able to loathe him as a manipulative right-wing hypocrite. Instead,
I find myself unable to believe that he's anything other than borderline
subnormal and thus, curse my liberal conscience, I have to feel sorry
for him. Berating him for being stupid is like any other form of bullying:
immoral, no matter how satisfying.
How can I be so sure that he's an authentically bone-dumb, knuckle-dragging,
mouth-breathing moron? It's the way he says 'Nuclear'.
For months now, he's been on our screens constantly, banging on about
various foreign Johnnies and their biological and NOO-cull'r weapons.
Even when his speechwriters managed to replace the term with the otherwise
un-fuck-uppable 'WMD' he still slid in a ''NOO-cull'r' in every speech.
Why would the leader of the free world continue to make an error of that
magnitude? There are several possibilities...
a) His cluster of aides, his speechwriter, the bloke on the other end
of his earpiece and even his driver are completely unaware of the pronunciation
of this key word and are thus unable to advise him. Percentage likelihood:
20%
b) They know, they've tried, but he's too arrogant to listen. Percentage
likelihood: 40%
c) He knows but he continues his mispronunciation to endear himself to
voters. Percentage likelihood: 80%
d) It doesn't matter how many times they tell him, he just drools a little,
smiles and forgets. Percentage likelihood: Too frightening to contemplate.
None of these scenarios look particularly good for George.
It's spelt 'nuclear'. Concerning, resembling or pertaining to the 'nucleus'.
NEW-KLI-USS.
It's not just sloppy, Texan drawling. The man has TOTALLY REVERSED THE
ORDER OF TWO SOUNDS. You have to have major brain damage or have been
brought up in a hollow in the Appalachians to speak that way. He's not
some inbred redneck, for Christ's sake, he's the Persident of the Untied
Tastes.
On an entirely unrelated note, every chap I know in the UK seems obsessed with something called the iPod. This boon to man is capable, one is told, of storing one hundred thousand songs in something the size of one's cigarette case.
I am baffled. Surely any song a gentleman requires has a tune he can hum and words he can sing along to. It is hard to imagine that, after 'Land of Hope and Glory', '47 Ginger Headed Sailors' and 'Nimrod' a chap would have need of more. I have devised, therefore, a simple system which uses the power of the educated brain to store and replay tunes at will.
1) Take two whisky tumblers and tie into place over the ears with an old pair of braces or two MCC ties knotted together.
2) Sit in your armchair and enjoy the experience, humming or, like those beheadphoned morons on public transport, occasionally breaking into arrythmic bouts of finger drumming
3) Have a glass of sherry
If you require a memory upgrade in order to store more tunes, drink less and attend the opera more.
Bung Ho