Two times -- TWO, I say! -- I posted something leadenly jocose and inexcusably lengthy, and two times it vanished in an apparently irretrievable way (after Captcha cleared it for publication, if that means anything which of course it does not).
Could your blogware include a jocosity detector, a self-satisfaction blocker, or more simply a length limiter that automatically/autonomously gives overweeningly otiose contributions? Or (gulp) were you, Mr. G, behind the curtain at the controls, surveilling, deleting, cackling softly?
I feel bad, because I was forced to acknowledge that I could've been doing something useful -- making something of myself and/or helping the impoverished elderly -- all the time I was typing and retyping my bloated, empurpled lead balloon. Dang!
I'm not sure. It was there! I read your comment- the whole well-researched and factual story several times (in order to try to add something or to top it.. and failing). Very strange.
Here it is, in its entirety.... Brevet Colonel MacAfee (Queen's Central Umberland Bigpapers, 1914-19 [ret.]) grunted happily to himself as his treasured combination (fancifully nicknamed "Amphibian Subaltern Rudgy") bore cousins Ottoline and Valvoline down to Devonside. The gay holidaymakers were escorted by his faithful batman, Lance-Corporal "Batty" Batman (just visible in photograph #2, at the wheel of the Macafees' utilitarian Linsey-Woolsey "Silent Assassin" runabout).
Described in BC MacAfee's personal papers as his "nonpareil Slave-Boy of solidly criminal lineage," Batty had volunteered his cherished biannual day off to launch the three-wheeled pleasure barge into the Devon's deceptively placid, alligator-filled waters, to mind the cousins' immense picnic basket and collapsible changing booths, and to "rendez-vous" (a harmless Quebecois coinage) with them before they were swept out to sea on the river's mighty alluvial discharge.
Thank you for truffle-rooting that caption, my dear G (may I call you G, or do you prefer to keep the honorific?). I only hope it proves useful to researchers in some unimaginable future endeavor. If that never comes to pass, apologies are in order: for its porky overlength, for afflicting innocent bystanders with it, for whining, and for putting you to extra trouble which, God knows, you need no more of.
In the interest of service to those Schrödinger's-type researchers, and at the risk of exploding your Comments section with further tediosity, I would like to make a correction or two, founded on discoveries I've made since the caption was posted, lost, reposted, etc.:
Col. MacAfee served not with the Q.C.U. Bogpeepers, as stated. His time in khaki was spent with the Royal Kerry Wastrels and perhaps with Lord Batmountain's Border Colleagues, a.k.a. "the Barfighters" -- the truth in this case is hard to establish -- and possibly as an adviser to U.S. Customs and Immigration shock troops. His longtime factotum and dresser was "Fatty Fatman": no Bs at all. Lastly, the behatted gentleman lurking, pretending to read a broadsheet, in the upper RH corner of photograph #2 is not one of the sinister investigators whom the Colonel long believed were surveilling his every move. In fact, he is no figment but a living, breathing Scotland Yard operative. I have his records in full, but English libel laws forbid me to share them.
Now there's a sidecar option the girls can get into to! Finally a true dual purpose rig.
ReplyDeleteWas it amphibious, then?
ReplyDeleteTwo times -- TWO, I say! -- I posted something leadenly jocose and inexcusably lengthy, and two times it vanished in an apparently irretrievable way (after Captcha cleared it for publication, if that means anything which of course it does not).
ReplyDeleteCould your blogware include a jocosity detector, a self-satisfaction blocker, or more simply a length limiter that automatically/autonomously gives overweeningly otiose contributions? Or (gulp) were you, Mr. G, behind the curtain at the controls, surveilling, deleting, cackling softly?
I feel bad, because I was forced to acknowledge that I could've been doing something useful -- making something of myself and/or helping the impoverished elderly -- all the time I was typing and retyping my bloated, empurpled lead balloon. Dang!
[Aarrgh. Para II, line 3, "contributions" s/b followed by "the deep six". Sorry.]
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure. It was there! I read your comment- the whole well-researched and factual story several times (in order to try to add something or to top it.. and failing). Very strange.
ReplyDeleteHere it is, in its entirety....
ReplyDeleteBrevet Colonel MacAfee (Queen's Central Umberland Bigpapers, 1914-19 [ret.]) grunted happily to himself as his treasured combination (fancifully nicknamed "Amphibian Subaltern Rudgy") bore cousins Ottoline and Valvoline down to Devonside. The gay holidaymakers were escorted by his faithful batman, Lance-Corporal "Batty" Batman (just visible in photograph #2, at the wheel of the Macafees' utilitarian Linsey-Woolsey "Silent Assassin" runabout).
Described in BC MacAfee's personal papers as his "nonpareil Slave-Boy of solidly criminal lineage," Batty had volunteered his cherished biannual day off to launch the three-wheeled pleasure barge into the Devon's deceptively placid, alligator-filled waters, to mind the cousins' immense picnic basket and collapsible changing booths, and to "rendez-vous" (a harmless Quebecois coinage) with them before they were swept out to sea on the river's mighty alluvial discharge.
Thank you for truffle-rooting that caption, my dear G (may I call you G, or do you prefer to keep the honorific?). I only hope it proves useful to researchers in some unimaginable future endeavor. If that never comes to pass, apologies are in order: for its porky overlength, for afflicting innocent bystanders with it, for whining, and for putting you to extra trouble which, God knows, you need no more of.
ReplyDeleteIn the interest of service to those Schrödinger's-type researchers, and at the risk of exploding your Comments section with further tediosity, I would like to make a correction or two, founded on discoveries I've made since the caption was posted, lost, reposted, etc.:
Col. MacAfee served not with the Q.C.U. Bogpeepers, as stated. His time in khaki was spent with the Royal Kerry Wastrels and perhaps with Lord Batmountain's Border Colleagues, a.k.a. "the Barfighters" -- the truth in this case is hard to establish -- and possibly as an adviser to U.S. Customs and Immigration shock troops. His longtime factotum and dresser was "Fatty Fatman": no Bs at all. Lastly, the behatted gentleman lurking, pretending to read a broadsheet, in the upper RH corner of photograph #2 is not one of the sinister investigators whom the Colonel long believed were surveilling his every move. In fact, he is no figment but a living, breathing Scotland Yard operative. I have his records in full, but English libel laws forbid me to share them.
Thanks again.