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The Truth of the War of the Worlds

 
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There was forewarning of the attack.

An astronomer friend of HG Wells spotted something like a very long tube on the Martian surface and repeated strange smoke clouds.

He and Wells put two and two together - and unfortunately someone lost a few digits in their calculations.

So, when the army were called out to Horsham Common they only found a 5ft deep crater and an irate badger.

Turned out that tripods were only 6 inches tall, and death ray could hardly sting a bit. The greatest hazard was of a person's dignity as they have a nasty habit of dry-humping legs.

The Martians are still out there, and if the wind blows from the right direction, you can still hear a very high- pitched hooting noise.

not_morrison_rm, Jan 20 2019

Thinkbox https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uTyeLJtOprE
A terrible warning ... [8th of 7, Jan 20 2019]

[link]






       You do know that there's a TV advertising campaign running in the UK on this exact theme ? An alien broadcasts a message to the whole planet, but when he lands his ship is accidentally crushed by a campervan driven by a UFO enthusiast.   

       <link>
8th of 7, Jan 20 2019
  

       I thought they were inhaled by a small dog?
RayfordSteele, Jan 20 2019
  

       ^^I don't have a TV, I got bored of moving pictures.
not_morrison_rm, Jan 20 2019
  

       I know just how you feel, [nmrm]. Last weekend we tried to rearrange all the portraits in the Second Great Hall, and frankly by the time we were half way through I'd had enough.
MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 20 2019
  

       Well, there are a couple of ancestors who look odd whichever way round you hang them.
MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 20 2019
  

       Would it be better to hang the paintings grouchy -> smiley for a more uplifting effect?   

       NB is you do this on linux command line (all on one line)   

       wget --limit-rate=200k --no-clobber --convert-links -- random-wait -r -E -e robots=off -U --follow-tags=a "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/32.0.1700.102 Safari/537.36" -A html --domain= uk.reuters.com http://uk.reuters.com   

       gets you all the text at 0.2520 megabytes, and not the 6.6 megabytes of images, videos and all that other crap. I already know what Trumpie looks like.
not_morrison_rm, Jan 20 2019
  

       //grouchy -> smiley for a more uplifting effect?// Many of the early ancestors just look grouchy either way up. They were just really grouchy. Over time, as the estate accrued, the portraits get noticeably more happy.
MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 20 2019
  

       " ... and with that admission, the case against [bigsleep] was proven beyond reasonable doubt."   

       // by the time we were half way through I'd had enough ... When you say rearrange all the portraits, they’re landscapes now ? //   

       "I'd had enough" ... oh, how tragic. Considering your role in the whole miserable business, that's pretty good.   

       An invitation inscribed on vellum and hand-delivered by a uniformed flunkey is enough to attract at least a modicum of attention. When it reads, "You are cordially invited to a private inspection of a selection of the Buchanan family portraiture. A buffet and a selection of vintage wines will be on hand. RSVP" the proposition sounds mildly attractive.   

       The reality - that the "buffet and a selection of vintage wines" are reserved for [MB] and no-one else, being guarded by a number of glowering, heavily-scarred thugs grasping a selection of baseball bats, chair legs and pickaxe helves - becomes immediately apparent; guests being issued with a selection of stepladders is something of a novelty.   

       The subsequent process of "inspecting" the paintings consisted of using the ladders to get them down off the walls and hold them for His Lordship's consideration, before being temporarily set aside while the new layout was considered. Add to that the chore of carrying M'Lud, comfortably ensconced in his heavily upholstered antique armchair, to a succession of vantage points, and the whole event degenerates into a farce, and not an enjoyable one at that.   

       And half way through, what happens ? "I'm bored with this game", he says, "I want to go to London town and look at all the pretty shops". He is whisked away by a coterie of servants, and the guests - tired, hungry, thirsty, and thickly coated with dust and cobwebs - are roughly frisked for concealed stepladders by the "security advisors" and then pushed out of the nearest door into the rain.   

       It wouldn't be so bad, but it's the third year in a row this has happened.   

       // a couple of ancestors who look odd whichever way round you hang them. //   

       Ah, those would be the equestrian portraits where it's not entirely clear which one - biped or quadruped - is the ancestor.
8th of 7, Jan 21 2019
  

       Only the helves? I shall have words.
MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 21 2019
  
      
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