EXNE Post 6

The ancient Romans, as opposed to the old Romans, did not understand the concept of pockets. They invented plumbing, roads, and a right clever fancy language, but the concept of a fold of cloth sewn over a Toga eluded them. They kept their coins in their mouths, which is where the phrase, “put your money where your mouth is” comes from. When the Victorians decided to translate the Greek classical plays and Epic poems, they were shocked and not a little disgusted by all the swearing, violence, and general bacchanalia within the otherwise rather lovely verse. In order that the ladies would be able to read them without their heads falling off, they decided to translate the offending passages into French. Hence the phrase ” Pardon my French”. The first advert on ITV was for Gibbs SR toothpaste, John Winston Ono Lennon was assassinated on December the Eighth at ten to midnight, outside the Dakota building in New York by Mark David Chapman, Tobe Hooper directed Poltergeist, and Joe Dante directed Gremlins.

And that my EXNE chums is just a scrape from a fingernail of the trivial information I have stored inside my noggin. How can it be that I retain such useless, valueless, pointless knowledge whilst trying to remember where I`ve put my car keys. As an aside, If useless is without use, and valueless is without value. what is ruthless without? I`ve only ever met one Ruth, and she was lovely. I couldn`t stop myself, I`ve just googled it, and it turns out “ruthe” is a twelfth Century Middle English word denoting mercy, pity, or compassion. Great, there`s something else that`ll be lodged there whilst I`m stood at the front of the swimming lessons queue trying to remember My son`s date of birth (oh yeah, that happened this morning).

The truth is, I know exactly why my retention of superficial fact is primary, whereas important, necessary, vital intelligence is secondary in my tired, addled, and not a little raddled mind. It`s because my Father is Kenneth Davies. He has for many years spoke in a language I issue with the description “Kennilingus”. In the past he has given me nuggets such as “you can lead a horse to water, but you can`t make it bark” and “He who laughs last, laughs lastest”. He is the man who in the past when asked by my Mother to deliver the facts of life speech, sat me down and said “never give them your real name or address”. and left to go and watch Star Trek.

More importantly, and to reinforce my case, for the past twenty years no sentence has passed his lips which has not contained the noun “thing” within it. “That`s him out of that thing”, “So I grabbed hold of the thing”, you get it. A couple of years ago he surpassed himself when he uttered the immortal “You know, that thing with the thing”. Nope Pop, you`ve completely lost me there! But what he doesn`t know about Frank Sinatra, Organised Crime, and Vaudeville could be written in bold on half a grain of rice. I am hurtling towards him at a rate of knots, and I`m powerless to do a damn thing about it.

I look at my kids, Thing one and Thing two, and I witness their learning along with their creativity and it amazes me. It fills me with hope for the future, and joy that the curse of the Davies lineage may finally be broken. As I ponder what their future may hold, a world where cash cards are not repeatedly cut in half because PIN numbers pass through synapses like caster sugar through a sieve. A world where IT departments are not contacted on a regular basis, because Passwords have passed over into the Arhur C Clarke world of the Unknown and Mysterious. It`s at this point that Thing Two informs me that she can name every Moshi Monster, whilst thing one is stood scratching his head wondering where his homework has gone. Circle. of. Life. (Written by Elton John and Tim Rice, sung by Carmen Twillie in “The Lion King”).

Till the next one, learn something new, (and important)

GNS.