Eye, Eye, What’s Going On Here Then?

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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A slight break from the usual today.

Never one to hide from controversy, I want to open up a discussion on a subject that has over the years been debated intensely but never proved conclusively.

Let me set the scene.

One of the most enduring characters on television has to be Lieut. Columbo, the short, disheveled, cheap cigar smoking, eccentric detective of that name, who by persistence, dogged investigation of the clues and a deceptive intelligence, always managed to get his man, or his woman.

Now I know you could have driven Columbo’s beat up Peugeot through some of the holes in the plot lines, but that aside, Peter Falk’s unique interpretation and portrayal of the character always made for enjoyable TV watching. Even the repeats, of which there have been many over the past three decades or so.

There’s no argument, or there shouldn’t be, as to Falk’s acting ability. Although known by a lot of people only as Columbo, he also played many other roles both on the big screen and on television.

But Falk also had a disability. He lost an eye due to a childhood disease and as a result for most of his life he wore a glass eye.

And that gets us to the great debate I was telling you about in the intro to this post.

In the Columbo series, there is nothing in the scripts that indicates that Lieut. Columbo had been injured as a policeman or in an accident.

So the big question is, as Lieut. Columbo, was Falk’s glass eye a glass eye, or was it a glass eye playing the part of a real eye?

I used to think that we were the only people whose minds were warped enough to think up a question like this, but apparently others have been asking the same question and I have even on one occasion heard the subject mentioned on TV.

So what is the answer?

Do you know, or do you have an opinion one way or the other?

If you have, please let me know. There are already far too many uncertainties in the world at the moment. One less would help things along greatly!

Thanks.

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It’s A Day For A Little More Word Play

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Time for another bunch of those word plays they call puns.

Get your groans ready and enjoy!

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I usually take steps to avoid elevators.

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The girl wanted to lose weight so she went to the paint store. She heard she could get thinner there.

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He had a difficult time bouncing back from his bungee cord accident.

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The cannibal’s cookbook titled ‘How to Better Serve your Fellow Man’ was written by a guy who had a wife and ate kids.  

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My friend wore a blindfold at the shooting range, he didn’t know what he was missing.

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If you need something done, call an electrician – they conduit.

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Although Nobelists tend to have dynamite personalities, Niels was a Bohr, and Linus was a Pauling.

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The police arrested me after my therapist suggested I take something for my kleptomania.

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When Peter Pan punches, they Neverland.

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The magician got so mad he pulled his hare out.

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The new weed whacker is cutting-hedge technology.

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Novice pirates make terrible singers because they can’t hit the high seas.

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I used to be a watchmaker. It was a great job and I made my own hours.

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I hate the price of candy at the movie theater. They’re always raisinette.

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All the waterfowl kept their eyes closed except for one. He was a Peking Duck.  

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Deafness is getting to be quite a problem for me lately. Wow, I never thought I’d hear myself say that.

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Bugs have very diverse religious views, because they are all in sects.

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She’s happy to make a pair of pants for you, or at least sew its seams.

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England doesn’t have a kidney bank, but it does have a Liverpool

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When you think about it, mummies are bound to be uptight.

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Don’t Call Me A Cannibal! – Oh, oh, We’re In Court Again!

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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It’s been a while since I raided the court archives. So here are a few more examples of the level of intelligence you can expect, not only from untrained Joe Public called to give evidence, but from the supposedly highly trained lawyers, supposedly!

Enjoy.

 

 

District Attorney: What happened next, Ma’am?

Witness: He unzipped his pants and pulled out his subpoena.

Judge: Any motions, counsel?

Counsel: I move to dismiss, Your Honor. All my client did was pull out a subpoena. There’s no law against that.

Judge: Counsel, if the witness doesn’t know the difference between a penis and a subpoena that’s her problem. Held to answer!

 

 

 

Judge: If that be your verdict, so say you all

2 Jurors:  “you all”

 

 

 

Judge: Any member of your immediate family or yourself ever been the victim of a crime or robbery?

Juror: My mother had her purse snatched

Judge: How long ago was that?

Juror: Ten, fifteen years ago

Judge: Was she hurt at all in the snatch?

 

 

 

Judge:  What made you bite the police officer?

Witness:  He stuck his arm in my mouth

 

 

 

Q: Were you the lone ranger on duty that night?

A: I was a park ranger on duty that night

Q: I mean the only one, the lone

A: You mean alone?

Q Alone

A: Yes, I was

 

 

 

Q: Do you speak Spanish, Officer?

A: Yes, I do

Q: Are you fluent in Spanish?

A: Yes, I do

 

 

 

Q: Are you being selective about what you remember and what you don’t remember as to the details of your previous record?

A: I don’t remember.

 

 

 

Q: Do you have any problem with the English language?

A: No, I speak very good English.

Q: Great. Do you know Andre?

A: That’s my cousin.

Q: Have you known him all your life?

A: Since we grewed up.

 

 

 

Q: Now, do you recall the date the accident occurred?

A: Yes, sir.

Q: What date was it?

A: It was a hot day in August.

Q: Did you drink any alcohol?

A: No, sir.

Q: Are you a teetotaler?

A: Not really. Just coffee once in a while, like in the morning.

 

 

 

Q: And y’all had a very intimate relationship, didn’t you, Ms. A?

A: We had sex two times. It wasn’t very intimate.

 

 

 

A: Yeah, I used to be around with him a lot. Me and his nephew run together.?

Q: Who is his nephew?

A: Pokey. I think he’s doing time now.

Q: Pokey is Kenny’s nephew and is doing time now? Are you saying Pokey is in the pokey?

A: Yeah.

 

 

 

District Attorney: Defense Counsel is accountable to you (the jury)

Counsel: Judge I object to that. I object to him referring to me as a cannibal, Judge

Judge:  He said accountable

Counsel: A what?

Judge: He said accountable, not a cannibal

Counsel:  It sounded like cannibal to me and I object

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Hard Luck Mr Scott, The Romance May Be Dead But Your Wife Isn’t!

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Yesterday the subject of my blog post was a rather nice story about a farmer in England who had put a lot of thought, time and effort into creating a memorial tribute to his late wife. I called it “Well done Winston Howes, Who Says Romance Is Dead?”.

A bit out of character for this blog perhaps, but I admire people who do things that are just that little bit above and beyond the call of duty.

Today, however, you could say that “normal service” has been resumed. You could probably tell from the title, “Hard Luck Mr Scott, The Romance May Dead But Your Wife Isn’t!“.

This is a story about another Englishman. This time a Mr Peter Scott from Southsea who has gone down in history as the least successful husband at trying to murder his wife!

All in all Mr Scott made seven attempts to kill his wife.

And the strangest thing of all was that she never once noticed that anything was wrong.

It all started in 1980 when he took out an insurance policy on his good lady that would pay out a quarter of a million British pounds in the event of her accidental death.

 

insurance money

Shortly afterward, he made his first attempt to cash in when he placed a lethal dose of mercury in her strawberry flan. Unfortunately for Mr Scott the heavy mercury all rolled out.

Strike attempt # 1.

 

strawberry flan

However, not wishing to waste this deadly substance, he next stuffed a mackerel with the entire contents of the bottle. This time, to his delight, his wife ate it, but, to his dismay, with no side effects whatsoever.

Strike attempt # 2.

 

mackerel

Warming to the task, he then took his better half on holiday to Yugoslavia. Recommending the panoramic views, he invited her to sit on the edge of a cliff, but she declined to do so, prompted by what she later described as some “sixth sense.”  

Strike attempt # 3.

 

cliff

He tried the same type of thing a few weeks later when he urged her to enjoy the view from Beachy Head, the famous 500 feet high chalk headland in the south of England.

Strike attempt # 4.

 

Beachy Head

Then, when his spouse was in bed with chicken-pox he started a fire outside her bedroom door, but some interfering busybody put it out.

Strike attempt # 5.

 

Would-be Arsonist

Undeterred, Mr Scott started another fire but only succeeded in burning down the entire apartment. The target of his arsonist adventures escaped uninjured.

Strike attempt # 6.

 

burning apsrtment

On yet another occasion he asked her to stand in the middle of the road so that he could drive toward her and check if his brakes were working.

Strike attempt # 7.

 

Road Rage

Unbelievably, at no time did Mrs. Scott feel that the magic had gone out of their marriage. She must have been sooooo dumb!

Finally, since it appeared that nothing short of a small nuclear bomb would have alerted this good woman to her husband’s intentions, he eventually gave up and confessed everything to the police.

 

arrested

After the case, a detective said Mrs. Scott had been “absolutely shattered” when told of her husband’s plot to kill her.

 

Had not a clue

 

Duck Shoot Shot!

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

 

I did a bit of hunting when I was a kid and it was enjoyable enough at the time. And I have nothing very much against it for those who are inclined to such pastimes. But as I got older I lost interest in it. If there’s vermin around I’ll take out my shotgun and dispatch it no problem. But these days, and you may agree with this or not, I find that there are much more interesting things to do that trying to outwit a duck.

The same can not be said for these two intrepid hunters.

The story begins with a guy in Michigan, USA, who bought a brand new $30,000 Grand Cherokee, on credit naturally. He was very proud of his new rig, and got hold of his friend to do some male bonding with the new ride.

They decided to go duck hunting on a frozen lake and turned up with their guns, a dog, lots of beer and of course the new vehicle. They drove out onto the ice.

Now, they needed to make a hole in the ice to attract ducks – something for the decoys to float on. In order to make a hole large enough to interest a flock of ducks, they needed to use something a bit bigger than your normal ice drill. But, thinking ahead and coming prepared, they had brought with them a stick of dynamite with a 40-second fuse.

You can probably see where this is going already?

To their credit, these guys realized that they wanted the explosion to be far away from themselves, the jeep and their equipment. However, they also didn’t want to light the fuse and run back to the jeep in case they slipped on the ice.

So far so good, and the logic of their thinking was okay.

Their solution, however, was to stay where they were, light the dynamite and then throw it as far as they could.

Again so far so good, it still sounded like a plan.

So they did that very thing. They threw the dynamite and the explosive landed a suitable distance away. They waited for the explosion.

However, when they made their plan they had no contingencies in it about their dog.

A well-trained golden Labrador, it immediately set out across the ice to bring the back the stick.  That’s what dogs do. And this dog did.

The two would-be hunters started yelling, stomping, and waving their arms.

The dog glanced back but took all the frantic activity as approval and encouragement and happily ran back toward the hunters, fizzing stick of dynamite firmly clenched in it’s jaws.

As the dog approached, one of the pair thought rapidly, grabbed his shotgun, and shot the dog.

Unfortunately the shotgun was loaded with #8 duck shot and was hardly effective enough to stop a dog the size of a Labrador.

The dog did pause for a moment, slightly confused, but then continued on.

Another shot rang out.

This time the dog became really confused and, quite naturally, scared.

He changed direction, and now with an extremely short fuse still burning, headed for the nearest and indeed only cover on the wide expanse of ice.

Yeah, underneath the guy’s brand new Cherokee.

The dynamite went off, and dog and jeep plummeted to the bottom of the lake.

Strangely, the insurance company refused to pay up.

 

 

golden Labrador dynamite retriever