Thank you Cowerati for your wonderful submissions for ideas for Classic works of literature suitably reduced in scale for publication as Nano Editions, a la Teeny Ted from Turnip Town.

I can tell you that judging a winner was a tough call from so many chuckle-worthy entries. In the end I just had to go with my initial instincts and give the prize to the suggestion that most surprised and delighted me on first reading.

First, some Honourable Mentions:

Phoebe Fay got a chuckle with The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Neighbourhood, as did Casey with Slaughterhouse .5. Chickie definitely got a laugh with The Okay Earth, and Joey also raised a guffaw with … (his abbreviated version of Waiting for Godot)

Pil continued to completely confuse me with a book that Adolf Hitler almost certainly never even thought of writing, Mein Achselhöhle (about his armpit…?), and HughT almost pipped the winner at the post with his wonderful The Life of Pi to Four Decimal Places.

In the end, I had to go with the suggestion that I thought most succinctly summed up the spirit of the Nano Publication (ie, a Classic with essence suitably distilled for sub-miniature reproduction), combined with the most outrageous pun. It was, of course, Radiocative Jam‘s Less Miserables.

Jam, the trophy is yours. Salut, and well done. An appropriate prize is winging its way across the Pacific.

The Sheep Train

In another first for The Cow, this post comes to you live from the inter-city train that runs between Sydney and Melbourne. Well, not live, as such – there is no actual internet connection on the train, lest you think that Australia might be anywhere near that technologically hip – but I am typing it on my laptop ((You may think I’m that technologically hip.)) as we hurtle ((I use the word with irony.)) out of Albury Wodonga towards Melbourne, now about three hours away.

Being something of a fan of rail travel, and heading off to visit Violet Towne for a few days, I thought that instead of taking the usual ho-hum plane flight I might splurge the extra $20 ((That should really have clued me in… a 20 buck difference between Economy and First Class travel… )) and kick back in the luxury of First Class. Sure, the train takes about 6 times longer, but hey, First Class! You know: Leather seats; red velvet curtains; witty attractive passengers; crisp white linen table cloths and sparkling silver cutlery in the dining car. Orient Expressville baby! Get the picture?

Yep, it’s the wrong picture.

We head out of Sydney Central at 8am, late, but what’s rail travel without delays, right? The First Class carriage is moderately filled, but I have two seats to myself, and there is no-one behind me or across the aisle. Cool. Nice, quiet trip!

10 minutes out: Ergghh. These First Class seats are SO uncomfortable. They must be the only seats I’ve encountered anywhere in the world where reclining them increases their discomfort by a factor proportional to the angle of inclination (that’s not to say that they were comfortable upright either – I’ve sat on more luxurious seats in bus shelters). I marvel that anyone can have, even intentionally, designed something so back-achingly awful. I hope the designer, when he goes to Hell (for he surely will), spends Eternity in one of these seats.

20 minutes out: We stop at Strathfield Station, the last urban stop before we hit the country, and pick up a million extra passengers. Well I do exaggerate. But in a fitting demonstration of CountryLink ineptness, there are, in fact, more passengers boarding the train than there are seats available. Yippee. This causes more delays.

The seats around me fill up. With old ladies. Now I’ve got nothing at all against old ladies, but these are stupid old ladies. Stupid, loud, annoying old ladies. You know the kind of thing – everytime the train goes past a station one of them says “Oooh. Flemington. Oooh. Picton. Ooooh. Moss Vale”. One of them talks endlessly about absolutely nothing. In a very loud voice. For hours. I can’t even drown her out with my iPod turned up loud. I glare at her pointedly and screw my ear-buds in even tighter. She takes this as an invitation to turn her volume up from squawk to shrill. If I ever get that bad, someone shoot me.

The loudspeaker spruiks wares from the Buffet Car. Idiotically, I venture out for a cup of coffee (mostly so I can have some brief respite from the inane prattle which has now turned into a mix of racism and cooking suggestions). I come back with a scalding hot cup of weak instant sludge and a little container of UHT milk. I look at the these things on my cheap cardboard tray. Someone’s meddling with my sanity. First Class? Swill?

I try to console myself with the thought that if this is First Class, things must be truly hideous in Economy. Evidence of this is forthcoming pretty quickly. The First Class carriage is the second car on the train. The first car is a sleeper that has been converted to Economy seating for the daytime trip. This means the First Class carriage is between them and the Buffet Car.

Soon begins the long procession of Economy Class passengers intending to fuel themselves for the gruelling journey. The first thing I notice is most of these people hardly need fueling. In fact, dispensing with the train and jogging to Melbourne might be a good option for many of them.

There is one guy who has the most ENORMOUS belly I have ever seen. He’s not really a big man in other respects, but his belly looks like it composes the better part of his body mass. The most off-putting thing is that he chooses to highlight his asset by wearing tight jeans and an even tighter lycra t-shirt that allows the bottom of his stomach to sag out. The shirt’s slogan says ‘Buff Riders’. At first I thought it read ‘Butt Riders’ but I had ample opportunity to check. I don’t know which is worse when I think about it. He has no front teeth, and makes numerous trips back and forth to top up with Coke so he can remain that way.

Then there is the young, even groovy looking, guy in dark suit and sunglasses, who walks past clutching to his chest something that looks awfully like a carpet bag. Attentive to his threads he may be, attentive to his personal hygiene he definitely is not. A wave of overpowering body odour floods in his wake as he passes through. After his second trip, and the sense of disbelief that anyone could smell that bad has diminished, First Class passengers start to cringe pre-emptively when he enters the door at the far end of the carriage. For inexplicable reasons he makes numerous trips back and forth, always clutching the carpet bag, but never bringing back any food or drink.

From time to time the happy CountryLink staff keep us informed of where we are. Which wouldn’t be so bad except for the fact that every time they announce “Our next stop will be Goulburn”, the old ladies go into a flurry of repetition: “Ooooh, Goulburn! Next stop is Goulburn! Oooh…!” (I kid you not). I start dreading the click of the intercom that heralds the announcements.

So. Three hours or so to go and it’s getting dark.

I begin to really really wish this was the Orient Express. Not because I’m pining any longer for the crisp white tablecloths or the mahogany trim or the caviar and champagne, but because this First Class carriage is looking more and more like a very fitting setting for murder.

A Very Very Small Book

In a sterling attempt to redefine the concept of light reading, Robert Chaplin at the Nano Imaging Facility of Simon Fraser University recently created the smallest book in the world by using a using a focused-gallium-ion beam to ‘carve’ the letters of a story in silicon at a resolution of 40 nanometers*. The tale Mr Chaplin chose for this escapade is written by Malcom Douglas Chaplin who I guess we can presume to be related. It concerns ‘Teeny Ted from Turnip Town’ and his successful entry in the local Turnip contest. You can read all about Teeny Ted’s exploits with the aid of your handy electron microscope and still have time to apply another coat of Powdery Mist to the wainscotting before tea.

Robert even has a blog where you can read more about his creation and congratulate him personally (I love the web!).

Anyway, this whole episode prompted me to thinking that Teeny Ted is just the foot-in-the-door for the new shelfspace-saving Nano Book phenomenon that is certainly upon us. Obviously, a great place to start would be re-releasing the Classics in Teensy Tiny form. Of course their content would need to be diminished in some way to be more in keeping with the format.

It will not surprise you to learn that I have a few suggestions…

•A Tale of One City

•Lesser Expectations

•20 Leagues Under the Sea

•Gone with the Breeze

•Disagreement of the Worlds

•A Clockwork Cumquat

•Even Littler Women

•The Insignificant Gatsby

•The Old Man and the Condensation

I daresay my faithful readers will have more…

Special Cow Announcement: Moo! Oh, sorry, I mean: Owing to the high calibre of suggestions so far for Condensed Version Classics to be etched at nano scale, I have decided to award a prize to the entry that makes me laugh the most. It will be a proper prize mailed out in the actual Real World Snail Mail.

Judge’s (ie my) decision will be final and no correspondence will be entered into. I’ve always wanted to be able to say that. I’ve also always wanted to say Damn the torpedoes and full steam ahead!! but so far no proper opportunity has presented itself. Maybe somewhere in the next year’s worth of posts…

A Picture Demonstrating the Properties of Special One Drop Liquid

Every now and then on The Cow, we are pleased to introduce you to new technical wonders that will revolutionize some aspect of your undoubtedly humdrum and dreary lives.

Now, following in the footsteps of marvels such as the Cowlexâ„¢ Vibrator, The Unusual Thing, The Non-Electric Machine, X-Fi, The Vegetarian Chicken Modeling Machine and The Cellular Squirrel, The Tetherd Cow Ahead Bureau of Innovation is pleased to present: PWB Special One Drop Liquid.

Here, let the inventors of this astonishing product tell you about it in their own words (directly from the press release, no editing, in the order it is printed):

Special One Drop Liquid possesses a most extraordinary property. The human senses, in common with the requirements of all living material including trees and all other green plants, have evolved the requirements for forward facing light energy.

Got that? Forward facing light energy. Well I’ll be damned. I’ve evolved it, and I don’t even know what it means.

Light, in common with most energies within Nature, readily forms an inverse pattern of itself when encountering an obstacle.

Like this: LIGHT -> OBSTACLE -> THGIL

Couldn’t be plainer. Go on…

Light is particularly modified when encountering a transparent obstacle. The human senses will not function correctly when confronted with an energy pattern which faces away from the senses.

I find that myself, certainly. It explains exactly why they put those little coloured stickers on fresh fruit and, at last, why the swallows always return to Capistrano.

The daily dietary requirement of salt and sugar is the chemical requirement that the body requires to manipulate the energy patterns absorbed by our bodies. To demonstrate the inverse pattern formation on objects which fill the modern environment, simply place salt on one face and sugar on another face of the object. Stimulate your sense of hearing by listening to music, then remove the salt and sugar. The effect on the senses is usually quite profound.

The effect of trying to comprehend the preceding paragraph is profound every time I read it. I get little pinging noises in my brain. It’s like being confronted with an energy pattern that faces away from the senses.

The effect is particularly noticeable if the faces of a NON playing Compact Disc or vinyl record is manipulated by placing salt (in a small bag) on one face and sugar (in a small bag) on the other face.

Ping. Pingpingpingpingping. Ping.

All green plant material has it’s own variation of salt and sugar in order for it to correctly manipulate sunlight. If a small bag containing sugar is attached to the upper surface of a leaf within your listening territory, including the garden, a noticeable beneficial effect will take place with your sense of hearing. A small bag containing salt can be attached to the underside of the leaf with the same beneficial effect.

Little bags of sugar? Leaves? Hearing? Wha? Wha? Ping. So the trees can hear better? Ping. Listening territory? Little bags of salt attached to leaves? Ping. Pingpingping.

Special One Drop Liquid can replace, with an increased effect, salt and sugar applied to the faces of an object, including to the faces of green plant life. The Special One Drop Liquid admits only forward facing light energy.

Righty-ho! The Special One Drop Liquid is for replacing little bags of salt and sugar that I have tied to the top and bottoms of leaves in my listening territory! Now we’re getting somewhere. P-i-i-n-n-n-g.

All Compact Discs should have a drop of the Special One Drop Liquid applied to both sides and spread across the surface using a finger tip.

Obviously! Wow, that’s totally brilliant! No longer will I have to put up with the mess from all that salt and sugar and dead leaf material that bursts out of the little bags tied to my CDs that clog up my CD player every time I try and play something. It’s a MIRACLE!

The surface can be dried with a cloth or a paper tissue. Vinyl records should have a drop of the Liquid applied to the particular area on the record which has the run off groove on both sides of the disc. The outside faces of the disc sleeve or disc housing should also be treated.

Well duh. Anyone with half a brain can see that if you’re going to treat the run off groove on a vinyl record, you need to treat the sleeve as well. Think of the savings on sugar and salt for a start!

To ascertain the effect of the One Drop Liquid on any object, it is only necessary to initially stand the small bottle containing the Liquid on the face of the object.

P-I-N-G!

ALL transparent material within a listening room, including glass windows, clock faces, wrist watch faces, TV screens, the lenses of eye glasses etc. and display windows on equipment should all be treated. It is only necessary to apply one drop of the Liquid to the corner of a glass window for the beneficial effect to be heard.

Anyone still with me? Guys? Gals?

The One Drop Liquid is particularly effective if applied to the rear of a photograph and to the glass face of a photographic frame. Artificial light, in the form of electrical light bulbs, has a particularly detrimental effect upon the sense of hearing and the glass of an electric light bulb should be treated.

Oh heck. Just smear the damn stuff on everything! In no time your hearing acuity will approach that of bats. I don’t know why the guys at PWB are selling this in those teeny little bottles. At the rate of application that they’re suggesting you’d go through a gallon just in your lounge room.

And if you’re skeptical at forking out for Special One Drop Liquid, have no fear! On the PWB Electronics site I found a whole swag of other tips for improving the sound quality of your music too (it isn’t clear whether these necessarily apply only to CDs either – as far as I can tell, any/all of these methods are effective in improving music just generally. Amazing!). For superior musical reproduction, merely:

•Place a piece of paper under one of the feet of any piece of furniture in the room!

•Pin back any one corner of a curtain in the room!

•Place a blue piece of paper under a vase of flowers in the room!

•Tie a reef knot in the power cables of your equipment!

•Freeze your CD in the freezer!

•Align all the screw heads in the room to be parallel to the Earth’s surface!

You think I’m making all this up, don’t you?

Ping.

___________________________________________________________________________

Thanks (I think) to Stewart via Kirke for bringing this to the attention of The Cow.

___________________________________________________________________________

The American rapper Snoop Dog has been banned from entering Australia where he was due to host the Australian MTV Awards this weekend because he was deemed by the Australian Department of Immigration as being of ‘unfit character’.

Snooped

“He doesn’t seem the sort of bloke we want in this country,” said Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews.

Oh no sirreee! We only admit persons of much higher moral fibre. Like, oh, er… this guy!

An Homunculus

So Catalyst has tagged me with a Birthday Meme. He should really have known better.

Here are a few random examples of the kinds of things that have taken place on the date of my birthday, September 27:

•1590 – Pope Urban VII dies 13 days after being chosen as the Pope, making his reign the shortest papacy in history.

13 days! Talk about unlucky. That’s what happens if your workplace performance is poor and you have The Almighty as a boss.

•1822 – Jean-François Champollion announces that he has deciphered the Rosetta stone.

What he actually said was “These Egyptian scribblings are all Greek to me!” In a surprising stroke of good fortune everyone misunderstood what he meant.

•1886 – Mormon prophet John Taylor receives a controversial revelation on plural marriage that now divides factions of Mormonism.

Which illustrates just one of the many problems you might have if you run an institution under the auspices of Divine Revelation rather than commonsense.

•1928 – The Republic of China is recognized by the United States

Hey! Howdy! Nice to see you again. Now where was it..? oh I remember! That party thrown by Russia last month! You’re lookin’ pretty good!

•1968 – The stage musical Hair opened at the Shaftesbury Theatre in London, where it played 1,998 performances until its closure was forced by the roof’s collapsing in July 1973.

Which may mark one of the few times in theatrical history when a show was cancelled because it brought the house down.

•1979 – The United States Department of Education receives final approval from the U.S. Congress to become the 13th US Cabinet agency.

My God! They have education in America?

Overall, September 27 is not a very auspicious date, if Wikipedia is anything to go by. My tip is: don’t travel on this day, especially in a boat. Even if it does happen to be World Tourism Day.

I share this birthday with the following personages: Gwyneth Paltrow, Meat Loaf, The Baron Lothar von Richtofen (The Red Baron), Alvin Stardust and Avril Lavigne. Lawks. Aside from The Baron, they’re a dreary lot.

People who chose to pop their clogs on this day include: The aforementioned Pope Urban VII, Edgar Degas, Clara Bow and Donald O’Connor.

This coming September 27 will mark my half-century. I’m having a BIG party. You’re all invited.

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