Carefully, timidly, I stepped onto what appeared to be a patch of harmless lawn, my hands clasped tightly over my eyes, feeling carefully with the bare sole of my foot.

I was uncertain whether I had found one, but I had to be certain... I couldn't just leave it there for some poor, unsuspecting soul to trip upon. By now I was quite certain I had found what I was seeking.

I knelt to the grass and unsheathed my bayonet, sliding it into the soft earth beneath the grass and levering the blade gently upward. There was something large and reasonably soft just under the grass. I lifted a little harder and caught a peek of a striped jersey. Now I simply had to identify the country of origin and the type and I was home and hosed.

Working quickly, I unearthed the mime, a post-WWII Bip, French in origin, from the Marcel Mangel School. It began to sit up so I rapped it across the head with a police baton and watched as its eyes rolled back in its head.

Uncertain whether it was awake and simply pretending to be unconscious, I motioned my colleague to take the other end as we lifted it bodily into a waiting glass tank, filled with poisoned water of unusual clarity.

Quickly, we put a heavy lid on the tank and sat on it.

The mime erupted into motion, struggling against the glass for a long time before apparently running out of air. We waited another fifteen minutes, to be certain. Tricky buggers, these French mimes.
-- infidel, May 14 2011

Amazon: One of Our Thursdays is Missing http://www.amazon.c...forde/dp/0670022527
Judge for yourself - I really enjoyed the whole series - the humour is unique, and full of literary references, along with this more pun/wordplay type of humour. [zen_tom, May 18 2011]

<link>

Hobart's "Funnies"; beating mimes to death with heavy chains since 1944.

[+]
-- 8th of 7, May 14 2011


You're digging up buried, but un-dead, mimes?

Do you not realize how difficult it's going to be to kill a zombie- mime meme?
-- lurch, May 15 2011


Why does the water have to be poisoned? Shirley the resulting solution of black-and-white makeup is equally lethal.
-- DrWorm, May 15 2011


Drowning, poison and makeup... to be sure, to be sure, to be sure.
-- infidel, May 15 2011


Are we now to expect Mimesweeper to be bundled with Wndows 8 ?
-- 8th of 7, May 17 2011


No, it'll be on the Windows phone by Nokia - gesture-controlled. Logo will be Elop trying to get out of a clear Microsoft contract.
-- lurch, May 17 2011


Once drowned, where on land do you propose to dispose of them?
-- BunsenHoneydew, May 17 2011


Invisible glass boxes should suffice.
-- RayfordSteele, May 17 2011


Perhaps they could be dried, then put outdoors when a strong wind is expected, so they blow around like tumbleweed…
-- 8th of 7, May 17 2011


Stitch them together and use them as sails on mock pirate ships. They can wave endearingly as mock cannonballs pass through them.
-- infidel, May 17 2011


Jasper Fforde riffs on this joke in his latest "One of Our Thursdays Is Missing" - if he is not a 'baker, he must be channelling the bakery subconsciously. Either that or we are channelling him.
-- zen_tom, May 18 2011


Who or what, is a Jasper Fforde? Is it like a Jasper Carrot?
-- infidel, May 18 2011


He's a writer, responsible (among other things) for the "Thursday Next" series of books, in which the eponymous heroine lives in a parrallel world in which Swindon is an important cultural capital, Croquet is a national sport, cheese is contraband, and Wales is an independent Socialist Republic. In the last of the series, entitled "One of Our Thursdays is Missing", during a particlarly exciting chase sequence, Thursday and her Robotic Butler are driven off the road by agents of the same criminal conspiracy they are investigating, to find themselves stranded in the middle of a dangerous "Mimefield". They must quickly think of an appropriate way to escape before the deadly mimes are fully activated...
-- zen_tom, May 18 2011


A children's author, I take it?
-- infidel, May 18 2011


Yes, among other things. Rudyard Kipling was a children's author too, so I'm not sure what you're getting at. A writer who had this exact same idea (I thought it was fun, but if you prefer to suggest that it's "childish", that's fine too) - only published in book form earlier this year.

Don't get this the wrong way, I'm not criticising you, or your idea, just observing a connection with something I read earlier in the year on holiday that I had enjoyed. Thought you'd be interested, carry on.
-- zen_tom, May 18 2011



random, halfbakery