Won’t Get Fooled Again
I work in a busy newsroom - there are at least 4 TV’s on at any one time on 3 different channels, newswires, computers, phone calls and a couple conversations, usually referring to something than happened 5 minutes ago and at least one of the parties in that conversation won’t know that the decision that was reached then has changed at least twice since they were involved.
So while this is going on, I play the role of the Mekon, floating about between these, sometimes in an organised way, sometimes butting in when I see something out of the corner of my eye.
This happens a lot. Something looks like it might be interesting and usually turns out not to be. It’s the tempting glint in the sand that turns out to be a ring-pull (OK, we don’t have ring-pulls any more, but go with it) instead of a Rolex. I think if I walked around at an angle and spent all the time actually looking out of the corner of my eye, I wouldn’t miss as much.
I have discovered that my ears also have corners.
Once a gathering of my steamed colleagues pointed out an incredible goal scored by a football player. A real 20 yard screamer (the goal, not the player), which drew gasps of admiration before they went about their business. About two minutes later, out of the corner of my eye I see the same player score an equally incredible goal.
“He’s scored again!” I yell to no one in particular. “Bloody hell! Did you see that?”
No one says anything for a while, and I can see they are impressed.
“Um, that’s a replay,” someone says.
As well as being an equally incredible goal, it was an indentically incredible, and therefore “credible”, goal.
So for the rest of the afternoon, every time they showed the replay, in every highlights package, someone would say something like: “Cliff, you’re not going to believe this. He’s just got another one.”
This joke still amuses them, and for month afterwards when an instant replay came on, someone could be relied on to say “he’s done it again”.
April 19th, 2005 at 4:20 pm
LOL! Oh dear, this is the kind of thing I do. I feel your pain.
And jokes where you are the butt which resurface every five minutes and are apparently always as funny as the first telling? Personally I poke them in the eye. That tends to shut them up.