(Before I start, this is not an invitation to start a riot over the political side of this or any argument about real/not real or red vs blue. I realise I have no control over it, I just don’t want it to descend into a scrum and a pointless one at that).

So you know when the (then) Republican nominee was shot at and the Secret Service let him stand up and wave his fist defiantly at the crowd as if to say “Come get me you bastards?”

My first thought was “Oh someone tried to shoot him, that’s a terrible thing for the democratic process” but then I span off into “hold on - why didn’t the Secret Service get him into the car, or a tent, or somewhere that’s secure because if you let him stand there wouldn’t someone else try to shoot at him again? What if there was more than one shooter? What if the guy who took the first shot had a friend or two friends? What if there were five shooters in different positions? Did you not see the episode of the West Wing where someone took a shot at Charlie? They took the President into the car in less than 30 seconds without him even realising he had been moved. And did you read the script for that? The script refers to Secret Service Agents’ as ‘SS Agents’ which just cracks me up because now I am picturing Bartlet (that’s PRESIDENT Barlet to you) and Leo and Josh and Charlie being dragged to the ground by men in Nazi uniforms and you’d think given they were being shot at by white supremacists the Nazis would be the last people who were trying to protect them and hold on this started off being a serious thought about the threat to democracy from someone shooting at the presumptive Republican nominee and now I am thinking about a Nazi plot to kill President Bartlet sometimes I wonder if I should be let out amongst decent people”

So - you know - I can see why someone would think that letting your mind wander to dwarves when someone is talking about their dead grandfather is a bad thing.

I’d say it makes it more evident because it’s something that has ALWAYS been true.

Now I’m imagining some overly zealous network censoring the show with David Boreanaz and Emily Deschanel for the same reason, and just how hilarious that would be.

I think twenty seven distinct poems, from Ozymandias to Kubla Khan, from Funeral Blues to Green Eggs and Ham, from The Second Coming to Tiger, Tiger, from Eloisa to Abelard to Jabberwocky, are all featured in this one poem.

Which is quite impressive when you think about it.

Do you mean the whole show or everything ever made in the history of time?

I’ve watched the whole show about 15 times if that helps.

Yeah - mostly it was the lack of response :)

After a while you get tired of talking to yourself…

Really? Because I’d imagine that took a lot of cooperation and teamwork, and you know what they say about teamwork…

It reminds me of this one :-

Stupid, yes. But funny. Which is what we need in the world.

And, of course, simple maths is just maths that people hasn’t made complicated yet…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIKGV2cTgqA

Well now you are just screwing with my head for fun.

Open excel (or any other spreadsheet app) or - at a push - the calculator app.

Type in 45 * 45. You will get 2025. Then try 44 * 44 and 46 * 46. You don’t need a PhD to be able to do that :)

Then you can use the same app to add up 1 - 9 and get 45, which will verify most of the post.

The cube thing is a little more complex, but you should be able to work it out using the multiply and the memory function.

(I checked it before I posted it :))

Only 40? Really?

You’d think it would be used to that by now

Wait – there are people who object to incestuous plots??

Weird.

But then you miss the slow part of the slow burn

This is why I feel old - it’s been in use since I was a kid (waaaaaaaaaaay back in the 80s) and probably before that.

The fact people don’t know what it means… children!! You are all children!!!

(Or, you know, from countries where it’s not used?)

Wow - now I feel old.

Only if you do it indoors.

Bakers dozens!!

(We come in 13s)