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*******NUMBERS 221 TO 225*****************************BY DANIEL BOWEN*******
*****Please note,  some of the quoted addresses within this file may no*****
***longer be correct. Please always use tcwf@gnu.ai.mit.edu for enquiries***


"Disco Toxic Custard"


221221221 221221 221      221 221221  Toxic Custard Workshop Files
   221    221    221 221  221 221     Number 221 - 17th October 1994
   221    221    221 221  221 221221  Written by Daniel Bowen
   221    221221 221221221221 221     But he claims insanity.

                      TOXIC HISTORY OF THE WORLD
                    Part 18 of a monumental stack

641 AD
  The Arabs capture Alexandria, and after a huge argument about
  overdue book fines, destroy the famous library. Efforts to fight
  the fire are hampered when instead of helping, all the librarians
  do is tell the firemen to shhhhhh!

669
  The Arabs unsuccessfully attach Constantinople from sea. Attach?
  Attach Constantinople to what? And using what? Some kind of very
  strong rope? And why was it unsuccessful, did the rope break?
  Sometimes this book I'm shamelessly copying history out of is a bit
  puzzling.
      Oh.
      *Attack* Constantinople.
      Okay.

711
  Open all day, all night, every day of the year. Oh, sorry. Try
  again.

711
  Having conquered East and North Africa, the Arabs cross into Spain.

720
  Spain subdued with a hangover, the Arabs (with the Moors) invade
  France. Well, it's something to do on a Sunday afternoon, you know.

732
  Charles Martel drives the Arabs out of France. Bit of a contrast to
  the Charleses of today, eh? I can't see Prince Charles driving
  anyone anywhere, unless it's a quick trip in the Range Rover to
  inspect a new type of tree at Balmoral, or to whinge to the press
  about what a wimp he is.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Once more we're all here. You're there, I'm here. Or, given that
there's a lot more of you than there is of me; I'm there, you're
here. Very cosy. Cosy enough to confess: I think I may be getting far
too involved in this seventies revival thing.

    I blame the movies. I suppose the signs were there. Tapping my
feet to the music in "Strictly Ballroom" a couple of years ago. But
it's getting worse. We saw "Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert" the other
day. Very good film. To my horror I found myself again tapping my
feet to the music. But the music was Abba's "Mamma Mia". This is bad,
this is very bad.

    It just got worse after that. I dragged out an old Countdown
video, and was, dare I say it, delighted to find such horrors as...
Suzi Quatro... The Jacksons when they were all still together - and
still black... Little River Band... the aforementioned Swedish
persons... *gulp* Bee Gees...

    Quick cure time. I'll reach for the Led Zeppelin.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

THING        PART 16
====================

                  (Jeff and Ron sit on a park bench,
                      watching the world go by.)

RON:    Ever wondered what it's like to be an ant?

JEFF:   Well, not lately, no. Not since I was studying Insectoid
        Theology. It's not the sort of thought that pops up into my
        mind every day of the year. In fact, it might be only once
        every two or three years, that I wonder what it's like to be
        an ant.

RON:    They seem to have very boring lives, ants. All they do all
        summer is wander around looking for food. And when one of
        them has found food, he goes back to all his mates and says
        "Oi! Food! C'mon!" and they all go off and join a chain-gang
        to take it back.

JEFF:   Yep, it'd be interesting if people worked like that. Huge
        families of hundreds of people all exploring outwards from
        their house, until one of them finds a 7-11 and tells the
        others to all come and line-up so they can all carry back the
        chips and Coke. And they're all walking up and down the
        corridor of their house, and just crawling over anyone else
        they happen to meet going the other way.

RON: (inspired) Yeah!...

JEFF:   Oi Ron, is this conversation leading anywhere? Is there some
        great ant theory that you're about to impart upon the world;
        or in the absence of most of the world, me?

RON:    Not really, no.

JEFF:   What, there's nothing you'd like to say?

RON:    Well, okay. I mean. Only that I never hear ants shouting to
        each other about where they've found food, that's all. Maybe
        they all have two-way radios.

JEFF:   Two-way radios for ants?

RON:    Just think about it... it'd be much more efficient than one
        ant having to pass the word around about a leaking syrup
        bottle, to millions of other ants. Some kind of walkie-talkie
        system would be obvious. Or some other kind of radio
        broadcast system.

JEFF:   ANT-FM?

RON:    Oh don't be silly. I'm sure they're not advanced enough to
        have FM. For heaven's sake, some of them probably don't even
        have colour TV yet. AM maybe, but not FM.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The back-issues of Toxic Custard (well,
most of them) are still available by
ftp. Mail tcwf@gnu.ai.mit.edu for info.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Copyright (c) 1994 Daniel Bowen. May be freely distributed without
profit provided no modifications are made.
--
Daniel Bowen, Melbourne, Australia--| Telecom Australia have
Work: dbowen@vcomtelc.telecom.com.au| nothing at all to do with
Play: dbowen@gnu.ai.mit.edu---------| TCWF. Unfortunately, I do.
TCWF: tcwf@gnu.ai.mit.edu-----------| Oh well. Can't be helped, really.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Stained Toxic Custard"


22222 222 2   2 2222 222 222 222  Toxic Custard Workshop Files
  2   2   2   2 2      2   2   2  Number 222 25th October 1994
  2   2   2 2 2 222  222 222 222  Written by Daniel Bowen
  2   2   2 2 2 2    2   2   2
  2   222 22222 2    222 222 222

                      TOXIC HISTORY OF THE WORLD
                  Part 19 of lots and lots and lots

751 AD
  Pepin, son of Charles Martel, is crowned King of the Franks,
  founding the Hotfrangers dynasty, and taking over a business that
  has a stranglehold on hot snacks throughout the empire.

762
  Baghdad founded; it becomes capital of the Arab empire. The locals
  immediately start building communications towers, five-star hotels
  for Western journalists to stay in, and bomb oops, I mean milk
  factories.

768
  Pepin dies; his fastfood kingdom is divided between his sons
  Charles (later known by the stage name Charlemagne) and Carloman.
  They get into a huge argument over whether they should sell hot
  chips or French fries.

771
  Carloman dies and Charlemagne takes possession of his lands. From
  then onwards Charlemagne enlarges his dominions (oooh err!) until
  his power reaches from the Pyrenees to the river Elbe in Germany,
  and from the Atlantic to the Danube and Tiber. Wow. That's an
  *awfully* big dominion.

786
  Haroun-al-Raschid becomes Caliph at Baghdad; under him the Arab
  empire is at its greatest. He organises all parts of the empire
  under a common banner to increase his power; the Orgy of Prayer for
  the Eternal Caliph. Together they all try and invent something that
  can use up all the oil that they dig up.

800
  After tense negotiations, Charlemagne wins a 14 year contract
  (including benefits and performance based pay) to be emperor of the
  Holy Roman Empire.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

    Until the weekend, I thought I had grown up. I've moved out of
home, got married (or was it the other way round?), got a Real Job,
and now we're expecting the first kid. I thought I was truly an
adult. But no. For this was the weekend that I truly reached manhood.

    For the first time in my life, I found myself doing DIY. I was
shopping in the hardware shop. Ever noticed how most of the people in
the hardware shops are mild-mannered, middle-aged men with caps,
brown raincoats and glasses, who are probably building nuclear
missile silos in their backyard? Yes, for the first time, there I was
there with them, buying brushes, turpentine and sandpaper.

    I've stained my first bookshelf.

    It's quite a feeling of accomplishment, I can tell you. Before,
it was virgin pine. Now it's Baltic stained pine. Very nice. In fact,
the accomplishment almost covers the embarrassment that we bought the
bookshelf a whole three years ago, all the time saying "oh no, we
don't need to pay the extra money to buy it stained - we'll do it
ourselves!!" Yeah - right.

    And so the bookshelf was delivered. Gleaming, bright, untreated
pine. And we stacked books into it. Just temporarily, of course,
until we got time to varnish and stain it. To save space. So the
books were stacked. We'll do it next week, we thought. And the weeks
turned to months, and the months into years. And, had a huge spark of
urgent embarrassment not raised its ugly head last week, the years
could have turned into decades.

    So remember kids, if you're ever shopping for any kind of
furniture, and you're offered the untreated stuff: Refuse. Let them
do it for you. It'll be quicker in the long run. Because the first
few minutes of the first coat of varnish can be fun. After that it
just gets tedious.

    As for me, next I have to do the second bookshelf, bought at the
same time. And anything else around that looks like it could do with
a varnish and stain. Hmmm... maybe the computer would look good in
Baltic? Or the fridge?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

    Recently suburban shoppers have had to beware of another menacing
threat: Supermarket trolley joy-riders. Gangs of youths have been
roaming the aisles, looking for people who are busy trying to find
their favourite breakfast cereal... and pouncing on their trolleys.
The trolleys are pushed at speed to a random aisle. And dumped.
Apparently the kids involved are excited by the daring, the speed,
but most of all the joy in seeing the completely confused look of the
shoppers who thought they knew their trolleys were.

    Some shoppers have later found their trolleys, only to get to the
check-out and discover the joy-riders had put in extra items, such as
packs of condoms, half a cow and a bumper box of laxatives.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Imagine the kind of fun you could have if you were a tailor to the
fashion-disadvantaged, or the blind. "Oh yes sir, that orange and
purple really looks good on you. It's what everyone's wearing in
cardigans this year. Our top selling item. But not so top selling
that everyone has one. Trust me, in an orange and purple spotted
cardigan, you'll be just that right balance between fashionable and
outstanding. Laughing? No, I can't hear any laughing..."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Toxic Custards 1 to 215 are available
by ftp - email tcwf@gnu.ai.mit.edu for
details. (Update soon!)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Copyright (c) 1994 Daniel Bowen. May be freely distributed without
profit provided no modifications are made.
--
Daniel Bowen, Melbourne, Australia--| Telecom Australia have
Work: dbowen@vcomtelc.telecom.com.au| nothing at all to do with
Play: dbowen@gnu.ai.mit.edu---------| TCWF. Unfortunately, I do. It's
TCWF: tcwf@gnu.ai.mit.edu-----------| just a cross I have to bear.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Racing Toxic Custard"


TOXIC CUSTARD WORKSHOP FILES  |      "That huge, careering polluting
Number 223, October 31st, 1994|       semi-trailer, running your car
Written by Daniel Bowen       |    off the information superhighway"
------------------------------'

                      TOXIC HISTORY OF THE WORLD
             Part 20 of more than anyone can put up with

802 AD
  Egbert, king of Wessex (whoa! The WHOLE of Wessex?!?), one of seven
  Anglo-Saxon kingdoms fighting for supremacy in England. The others
  are Northumbria, Mercia, Kent, Sussex, Essex and East Anglia. Also
  the king of Little Frumpton-on-the-Water, but none of the other
  kings take him seriously.
      Egbert hits upon a brilliant battle strategy. He withdraws his
  armies from fighting, and instead sends in the combined soccer
  hooligans of Wessex. It takes them a while to headbutt all the
  other opponents, but eventually they conquer the country.

809
  Haroun-al-Raschid dies; beginning of 200 years of chaos and civil
  war in the Arab empire. Wait a sec, that must be a misprint. I
  think they mean 2000 years.

814
  Charlemagne dies. And, at least according to the history I'm
  copying this from, there are absolutely no consequences. No rioting
  in the streets, civil war, or mass suicides.

829
  After a thrilling Cup Final, Egbert unites England for the first
  time under one king. Yes, all hail King Egbert! King Egbert, the
  mighty! King Egbert, named after a Sesame Street character and the
  thing that comes out of a chicken's rear end! Hail King Egbert!

840
  Frankish empire is divided between Charlemagne's sons and
  grandsons. Note that the Frankish empire is called that because the
  people were asked by visitors who they were.
      "Franks!" the loyal declared.
      "... ish..." added the doubtful.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

THE JOY OF WALLS

Walls do more than just hold up roofs. They act as a complement to
the furniture within a room. You can have painted walls, plain brick
walls, or wallpapered walls. But no matter how far wall technology
develops, it is still impossible to hang a picture up straight first
time. Every time I try to put a picture up, the whole wall turns
itself on an angle temporarily, only to make it obvious when I back
away that a disorientated blind polar bear hopping on one leg down a
cliff-face could have done better at hanging it straight.

Another pitfall is the dreaded TPAGF, the Temporary Picture Anti-
Gravity Field, which will cause one side of the picture to fall two
inches the moment you let go of it. Scientists believe this is
related to the strange behaviour of the hammer being attracted to
your finger when you try to put a nail in. And to the inability of
anyone to steer a shopping trolley.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I'm glad I'm not the only one who has an irrational fear of snakes,
spiders, insects... in fact, I'm basically scared of any living thing
that's smaller than me, that isn't furry.

"What", I hear you say, "even the little ants? The little ants
scurrying around searching for food? They're tiny! They couldn't hurt
anyone."

Yes, I reply, those damn ants. They may look like they're very
innocently looking for honey jars that haven't been wiped after use,
but they're not fooling me. Imagine if you were tied down against the
hot desert sand, unable to escape. With honey dripping onto your
foot. Would the ants crawling past ignore you? No! They'd begin to
tear your skin off, chomping into your blood and bone... euch! They
have to be stopped! All these creatures must be killed if they come
anywhere near me.

And that's why I've developed new all-purpose KILL OBLIVION HOLOCAUST
DESTRUCTION AND DEATH SPRAY (with free gasmask). Just one little
squirt and the range of fully-toxic non-biodegradable poisons will
distribute themselves in the direction that you point the can. More
poison power than a freeway at rush hour during a train strike!
Guaranteed to kill ALL known lifeforms within 60 seconds of contact.
And that includes furry ones, so just make sure you don't spray the
cat.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

1st November. 3:20pm. The Melbourne Cup.

Yes, welcome to Flemington Racecourse, for the hundred and
somethingth Melbourne Cup, this year sponsored yet again by Fosters.
Drink enough Fosters, and you won't care that your horse came last.

And as we see the horses line up at the starting gate, some late
scratchings include Fast Sausage, and Instant Glue, both of whom are
rumoured to have left the racecourse in closed trucks.

And they're off! Piss-poor got off to a good start, followed out by
Slow As A Slug, No Hoper and Rank Outsider...

<insert approx 2 minutes of hysterical commentary here>

And as they come around the corner heading for the line I've just got
time to wonder why all my sentences seem to start with "and". And
here they come now, it's Not A Chance, Extra In The Godfather,
followed by Equus... but no, the ambulance shoots out in front! And
as they cross the line, it's the ambulance, closely followed by Not A
Chance, just a nose to Extra In The Godfather.

And we'll cross straight over to speak to the ambulance driver's
trainer, to hear him crow about how he didn't expect to win but what
a great thrill it is, and where he bought his top hat etc etc etc

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Loads and loads of TCWF back-issues
are sitting around on ftp sites, just
waiting for YOU to download them!
Email tcwf@gnu.ai.mit.edu for details.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Copyright (c) 1994 Daniel Bowen. May be freely distributed without
profit provided no modifications are made.
--
Daniel Bowen, Melbourne, Australia--| Telecom Australia have nothing
Work: dbowen@vcomtelc.telecom.com.au| at all to do with TCWF. I, on
Play: dbowen@gnu.ai.mit.edu---------| the other hand, if pressed,
TCWF: tcwf@gnu.ai.mit.edu-----------| would have to say that I do.

Actually, my tip for the Melbourne Cup is that the winner will be
either Vintage Crop, River Verdon, Jeune, Our Pompeii, Air Seattle,
Paris Lane, Hear That Bell, Quick Ransom, Oompala, Top Rating, Double
Take, Glastonbury, Gossips, Alcove, Gold Sovereign, Grass Valley,
Oppressor, Starstruck, Toll Bell, Cliveden Gail, Coachwood, Major
Decision, Pindi or Sweet Glory. See if I'm wrong.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Mass Toxic Custard"


What do you mean you weren't expecting six copies of the last Toxic
Custard? It stated quite clearly in your subscription agreement that
"the reader agrees that under no circumstances is there a guarantee
that the number of TCWFs delivered in any week shall be limited to
one. In fact, it could be anything ranging from zero to two billion."

Actually, it's my way of getting back at you lot for missing the
Sunday night movie every week to write this stuff.

 ---------    -------------    ---------------    ---------    -----
 t o x i c    c u s t a r d    w o r k s h o p    f i l e s    2 2 4
 ---------    -------------    ---------------    ---------    -----
                                                    7th November 1994

                      TOXIC HISTORY OF THE WORLD
             Part 21 of more than anyone can put up with

871 AD
  Alfred the Great is king of Wessex, practically the only part of
  England not in Danish hands. When told by the local baker that he
  has Danish in the pantry, Alfred replies by chopping his head off.

878
  Alfred defeats Danes, compels them by Treaty of Wedmore to stay in
  their settlements in N.E. England, and become Christians. Doesn't
  sound like much of a defeat to me. What about ruthless torture,
  sacrificing their goats, and all the other stuff that great defeats
  usually involve? Sounds like this Alfred the Great bloke was a bit
  of a wimp.

900
  Alfred dies. While the body lies in state, thousands of his people
  come to pay their last respects, and try and get a glimpse of the
  alleged tackle that gave Alfred his nickname.

919
  Henry I, king of Germany, completes the separation of the Frankish
  empire into Germany and France, by cutting along the dotted line
  and folding back.

987
  Louis V, last Carolingian king of France, dies, and is succeeded by
  Hugh Capet, the first modern French king. Excuse me? Modern? In 987
  AD? Who wrote this??

1013
  Sweyn of Denmark conquers England, and is accepted as king,
  primarily because he brings millions of Lego bricks to bribe the
  peasants.

1015
  Canute, Sweyn's son, defeats Edmund Ironside, after Edmund makes
  jokes about going for a row down the river in the canute. Canute
  gets him back by putting him in a wheelchair. They divide the realm
  between them.

1016
  Edmund dies; Canute becomes sole king. A one man Canute.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

THING        PART 17
====================

JEFF:   So, the first Tuesday in November's gone past again, eh? How
        did you do?

RON:    Well, I didn't get caught in the rain.

JEFF:   No no, I mean The Cup.

RON:    Ah, I see. Well, I didn't realise there was quite that much
        in the Coke bottle. So when I poured it into the cup it kinda
        got right to the top - you know when it goes right up to the
        edges, and a little bit further, but doesn't quite
        overflow...

JEFF:   No no no, I'm talking about the Melbourne Cup. It was last
        Tuesday. "The race that stops a nation."

RON:    Does it? Which nation?

JEFF:   Australia. And well no, not really, but that's what they say
        about it. It doesn't necessarily mean that it actually does,
        it's just a way of making it sound like a mega event, that's
        all... So, did you have a flutter?

RON:    I thought it was horses, not butterflies.

JEFF:   Yes well, that may well be the case. You might be right in
        thinking that for 130 odd years they've met at Flemington
        Racecourse to see twenty-four horses run over two miles for a
        first prize of two million dollars. Horses, rather than
        Lepidoptera. You might be right. Did you happen to bet on any
        of these horses?

RON:    Yeah. I put money of them, yeah. I put two dollars to win on
        each one. Because I read somewhere that one of the
        twenty-four would win.

JEFF:   Well, that's probably pretty safe. One of them's almost bound
        to win. Didn't you bet on any both ways?

RON:    Now look... I've got nothing against that sort of thing. It's
        perfectly all right between consecutive adults, in privates.
        But personally, I am not a bilingual. It's just not for me.

JEFF:   Umm... right. So did you bet on any of the other races that
        day?

RON:    Yeah. I managed to get a bet that Phar Lap would get a place
        in the last race. 100,000,000 to one.

JEFF:   Phar Lap? You know Phar Lap's dead, don't you? In the museum,
        stuffed like a teddy-bear?

RON:    Oh yeah, that's why the odds were so good. At 100,000,000 to
        one, a bet of one dollar would have made... ummm... errr...
        Tell you what, it's just a shame that the plan didn't work.

JEFF:   What plan?

RON:    Two of my mates were going to break into the museum on Monday
        night, take Phar Lap out on a couple of skateboards, wheel
        him along to Flemington for the race... and Bob's you're
        uncle, instant fortune.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The news is not good. Toxic Custard
back-issues are available by ftp and
WWW. Email tcwf@gnu.ai.mit.edu for
details.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Copyright (c) 1994 Daniel Bowen. May be freely distributed without
profit provided no modifications are made.
--
Daniel Bowen, Melbourne, Australia--| Telecom Australia have nothing
Work: dbowen@vcomtelc.telecom.com.au| at all to do with TCWF:
Play: dbowen@gnu.ai.mit.edu---------| Their lawyers maintain that
TCWF: tcwf@gnu.ai.mit.edu-----------| it's all my fault.

And now, another thousand words.

begin 0666 kow.bmp
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M                 /___P#___]X>N^$/?___W>Z[[W@____=_5OSFW___]W
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,_____^?^?_______
 
end

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Ultra Toxic Custard"

_____ _____            ______            TOXIC CUSTARD WORKSHOP FILES
  |  <_____ |___|___| |---               ============================
Number 225. 14th November 1994.               Written by Daniel Bowen

                      TOXIC HISTORY OF THE WORLD
                       Part 22 of far too many

1042 AD
  Edward the Confessor, confesses, and is almost burnt at the stake
  for it. But instead he comes back from a holiday in Normandy to
  England, as king.

1054
  Eastern Orthodox Church breaks with the Church of Rome. Two months
  later, the South-Eastern Orthodox Church breaks away from the
  Eastern Orthodox Church. Barely has the dust settled when the
  South-Eastern-Left-Side-Of-The-Street Holy Church splits from the
  South-Eastern. It's only when, fourteen minutes later, the House-
  On-The-Corner-Of-The-Left-Side-Of-The-Street-South-Eastern Church
  breaks away, that people begin to realise that it was just one
  priest who kept getting into arguments with everyone else, that
  caused the whole thing in the first place.

1065
  Westminster Abbey, rebuilt by Edward the Confessor, consecrated. A
  tribe of nomadic Athiests are evicted. They threaten to go to the
  Rent Tribunal.

1066
  Edward the Confessor dies. Harold is elected king. William of
  Normandy decides that Harold is a complete wimp, after seeing a
  draft of the Bayeux Tapestry. William invades England, killing
  Harold at Hastings (next stop Bittern). After seeing a mysterious
  comet during a hail storm, he is inspired to start a Court band,
  called Will Haily And The Comets.

1071
  Seljuk Turks, led by "Stormin'" Abdul, seize Baghdad. They then
  sweep across Asia Minor and take the fortress of Niceaea, opposite
  Constantinople. House prices in Constantinople immediately dip.

1075
  Turks take Jerusalem and Holy Places. They take them out to the
  pictures, a spot of dinner, a little dancing... Once again, the
  Jerusalem tourist shops do a roaring trade. "Hey Mister, you wanna
  buy a shroud?"

1086
  Domesday Book, a survey of England, completed. Unfortunately, as
  printing hasn't been invented, each copy takes forty men three
  years to make. Because of this, and of course the enormous cost, it
  fails to make the best-seller list, and never makes it into
  paperback.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

ULTRASOUND I

Ultrasound. It sounds like such a simple (though high-tech) word. But
this is the miracle that allowed me to see the impressive product of
my equally-impressive loins. And all before that product has even
considered thinking about wanting to be delivered. It was devised by
Doctor Ignatius Ultra in the mid-1970s, while he was trying to invent
a way of using high-frequency sound vibrations to destroy his
daughter's Abba records.

For some unfathomable reason the ultrasound itself seems to involve a
preparation that features some kind of jelly, and desperately needing
to go to the toilet.

The mother (my wife Lori), is instructed to drink several lakes worth
of water a couple of hours beforehand, and (here comes the bad bit)
to hold it in. This involves extremely crossed legs, and thinking
about anything other than water, flowing streams, rivers, sailing
ships... not easy when the television in the waiting room seems to be
featuring a week of specials all about the chemistry, the behaviour,
the features, the pros and the cons, of H2O.

When relief finally came, the Hospital Board concluded that it had
been wise after all to install the high-capacity drains. But it was
worth it - for the first time we were able to see the baby, in its
temporary residence, doing aerobics, dancing, and generally having a
good time before having to put up with the world outside.

It's too early to tell the gender yet. And no, we haven't felt the
baby kicking yet. The doctors have told us to ignore the theory that
you can tell what the baby will aspire to by what we feel. Virtually
every baby kicks while in the womb, but very few end up becoming
kickboxers or footballers.

Naturally, Dad (that's me) had come prepared, with a portable
television station in tow (hey, what a great way to justify buying a
new camcorder!). I guess it's getting to the stage now where I'll
have to start doing all sorts of bloke-ish Dad-ish homey hardwarey
things. I've changed a fluorescent bulb starter, but it doesn't
really rank up there with restumping the house and re-doing all the
wiring. Now, where did that hardware catalogue get to?

Coming soon: Ultrasound II - The Quest For Gender

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Are noticeboards any use at all? They always seem to be crammed with
stuff that people put up, leave there for a few months, then take
down again, without anyone (except perhaps the poster) having read
them.

Why are clothes horses called that? Did people used to dry their
clothes by hanging them over horses? What would the horse think? "Oh
yeah thanks a lot for draping your cold wet clothes over me. Just
what I need with a cold coming on."

What do they mean, Reagan is showing signs of the *EARLY* stages of
Alzheimer's disease? Did Alois Alzheimer actually have Alzheimer's
disease? I was going to write something else about Alzheimer's
disease here. But I forget what.

We've got Chambers Biographical Dictionary sitting in the bookshelf.
20,000 biogs of famous men and women of history. I wonder if it's the
20,000 most famous? Wouldn't it be a bugger if you ranked 20,001?
Every day you'd be trying to get into the papers, to be noticed so
you might go up by one and make it into the next edition. How do they
rank people? "Well, he was assassinated, but then, she invented the
fly-swatter, surely a major contribution to humankind..."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Oh no! Toxic Custard back-issues are
still available by ftp or WWW. Damn,
you'll just have to email
tcwf@gnu.ai.mit.edu for details.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Copyright (c) 1994 Daniel Bowen. May be freely distributed without
profit provided no modifications are made.
--
Daniel Bowen, Melbourne, Australia--| DISCLAIMER DISCLAIMER DISCLAIMER
Work: dbowen@vcomtelc.telecom.com.au| I'm sure you can figure it
Play: dbowen@gnu.ai.mit.edu---------| all out. Blah blah blah,
TCWF: tcwf@gnu.ai.mit.edu-----------| blah blah my own problems. Blah.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
the Toxic Custard Workshop Files by Daniel Bowen, Melbourne, Australia

Copyright (c) 1994, 1995 Daniel Bowen. May be freely distributed
without profit provided this notice remains intact.

For subscription and back-issue information, contact tcwf@gnu.ai.mit.edu
