Hi-ho, hi-ho...

Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's back to work I go.

After a fortnight's winter break, I've got to set the alarm again, pack a cut lunch, stop swearing so frequently, and get use to cramming all my writing, reading, messing about, etc, etc, into the late evenings and weekends.  Hi-ho, ho-hum.

*bites knuckles.  stifles sob*

Oh well, look at the positives: food on the table, wine in the glass, money to buy books ... and I enjoy the people I work with (staff and students)---perhaps because we operate on a similar frequency of insanity.  Can't be too bad, eh?

Anyway, just to help with getting over those back-to-work blues (*fades in strumming 12 bar blues on trusty air guitar*), thought I might post a couple of funnies that have been shared with me recently.

The first from my brother, who tolerated my ranting about conceptual art recently, about which he knows a world more than me.  (In the name of nepotism, click here to access his website!)  Although I'm no Luddite and regard my PC as one of my favourite toys, and have always managed most books quite well, I love this sketch and am still wondering why I identify so strongly with the idiot!  Click to view 'Introducing the Book'.

Secondly, because there's little like a witty insult to evoke a wry smile (unless you're the recipient), thought I'd list the following, which a friend e-mailed to me a couple of weeks back (thanks, Martin):

"He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire."  (Winston Churchill)

"I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure."  (Clarence Darrow)

"He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary." (William Faulkner about Ernest Hemingway)

"I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it."  (Groucho Marx)

"I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it."  (Mark Twain)

"He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends." (Oscar Wilde)

"I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend ... if you have one."  (George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill; followed by:)

"Cannot possibly attend first night; will attend second, if there is one." (Winston Churchill to George Bernard Shaw)

"I feel so miserable without you; it's almost like having you here."  (Stephen Bishop)

"He is a self-made man and worships his creator."  (John Bright)

"I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial."  (Irvin S. Cobb)

"He is not only dull himself; he is the cause of dullness in others."  (Samuel Johnson)

"He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up."  (Paul Keating)

"He had delusions of adequacy."  (Walter Kerr)

"Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?"  (Mark Twain)

"His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork."  (Mae West)

"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go."  (Oscar Wilde)

Hi-ho, hi-ho, hi-ho.