A Titbit.
Aside
Catching up with the papers is a far less arduous task since MTL stopped getting D.T. vouchers and I for one don’t miss the forests of week-end press waiting to be read, OR – shades of the forties – all that money is wasted. Craig Brown was writing wittily, as is his wont, about Cherie Blair and to illustrate her shortcomings as a barrister when persuading her husband to seize the moment, after John Smith’s death, said.
“It reminds me of this courtroom exchange between a 19th –century American lawyer and an expert medical witness for the prosecution, recalled by Trollope and later recounted in Alec Guiness’s ‘A Common place Book’.
‘Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?’
‘No.’…
‘So then it’s possible the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?’
‘No.’…
‘How can you be so sure?’
‘Because his brain was sitting in a jar on my desk.’…
‘Is it possible the patient could have been alive nonetheless?’…
‘Well it’s possible that he could have been alive and practising law somewhere.’
22 comments:
Today's news is tomorrow's chip papers. All I read nowadays are Private Eye and the New Statesman. But my new paper shop sells the UK Sunday papers, so I fear I may fall back into bad habits.
Nowt wrong with the D.T!
Daphne: I have to admit I don't know the New Statesman. It sounds a bit heavyweight for my ever decreasing little grey cells.
Johng: the D.T. is one of our bonds:)
Oh dear, I hope my brain will never end up like that...
We don't get a paper anymore either. You can find a lot of news online, and it saves paper and money - plus a whole lot of mess in the house.
-Marjolein
An "oldie but goodie," dear.
Cheers.
LOL..... I love that one~!!
Randall: ah ha! I knew that would grab you:)
Marjolein: I can't think why more people don't get the message about daily papers.
Thanks Pat, I have just awarded myself a little break and shall now return to the grindstone with a smile on my face.
LOL, LOL, LOL...Oh that is good, Pat! It's the best laugh I've had in DAYS AND DAYS! Thank You My Dear, for this delicious funny!
judy: the old ones are the best.
Nea: exactly the same for - except you are working harder.
Naomi: delighted to have brought a smile to your face:) When I first read it I thought the punch line was the brain in a jar but it had a double punch line which is brilliant.
Growing up we never had newspapers in our house. This made it a bit awkward everytime there was a school assignment involving picking an article out of one to do something with. When I asked my dad why we didn't have daily papers like everyone else, he said he used to get them but slowly became convinced the world would end tomorrow. So he stopped buying them and the world didn't end, but he was a lot less stressed about it.
Having grown up without them, I never got into the idea of them myself
Kim: your dad was a wise man. Just the sight of a pile of papers I hadn't read used to stress my out. And the odd browse now is more of a treat.
I can't do without the papers. I know it's all available on the internet, but in practice I'd not bother to read it all. Besides, it's often the news and articles that don't make the headlines that are most interesting, and one doesn't notice them online. Besides, what would I do without the Times crossword?
Z: well of course it was an article that inspired this post. Bless his cotton socks.
I get my news from the internet here but when I go home I cannot get through a day without the paper. It might be just falling back into old habits, or sentimentality or something, but unless I've looked at a paper before lunchtime, something seems amiss.
In the 11 years I've lived here though the British broadsheets have become more and more tabloidy.
Very funny! I will send it to my lawyer friend!
Kanani: let's hope he/she sees the funny side:)
John Smith's death reminds me of this anecdote. Roy "Chubby" Brown was appearing at the Sunderland Empire that very same day.
His first line was: "I didn't like his f...g beer anyway!"
Krimo: black humour. I love it!
That's brilliant!
Missd: glad you agree:)
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