the one about the british history magazine

Category: weekleez

the one about the british history magazine
February 06, 2001

hi guys, once again it’s tuesday, and once again i’m sitting here wondering just what on earth i’m going to rant about this week.

well, first things first. i promised rowan (the only australian type person on my list) that i’d pass this reply along. apparently i did a bad thing with the whole playpus-bashing.

As probably one of the few (the only?) Australians on Jaimie’s list, I feel I have to protest against this so-called misrepresentation of the platypus. (And as Jaimie knows full well that the platypus is my favourite native animal, she should’ve expected this.)

Anyway, it is a Proven Fact that all normal Australian children learn about the platypus in full, uncensored detail in primary school. I remember being made to watch videos when I was seven, devoted entirely to the study of monotremes (platypi and echidnas, etc) and narrated by the Australian equivalents of David Attenborough.

More tidy little facts for you to treasure:

– Only the males are poisonous.
– There are zero (0) known human deaths by platypus to date.
– Despite how big they look on a television, they’re so little you could pick them up in one hand.
– They are adorable, shy and loving creatures. *sigh* I could just hug them.

Conclusion: The only reason I can come up with to account for Jaimie’s sad ignorance is the shocking state of the US education system.

Rowan
Platypus Devotee and Genuine Australian

thank you rowan for having the GUTS to stand up for what you believe in. i for one, have stopped believing in platypi and the u.s. education system.

on with the weekly.
look, i can’t think of anything to write about. and you know what that means. i have to resort to other people’s material. well, it’s either that or make fun of the British. i’ll just do both.

i have, for some reason, a copy of British History Illustrated. It’s the june/july 1979 issue of the magazine.
ok, stop laughing.
look, i don’t KNOW why such a magazine exists.
no, i HAVE NO IDEA where i got it.
of course i’m not a subscriber!

so i was flipping through the old rag and i noticed that it had, like all other magazines, a section dedicated to letters to the editor. so i read a few. oh my gosh, they were hilarious, and i’ll tell you why. they are so polite. it’s like watching parliament on tv. oh, come on. you’ve never watched parliament? it’s a gas. old men yell back and forth all the while refering to each other as “the right honorable gentleman” while some lady in a huge wooden chair screams, “ORDAH, ORDAH!”
ok. so maybe it’s not your cup of tea. anyway here’s one of the letters,

“Dear Sir, There is one aspect of your otherwise excellent publication which I find jarring and, if I may be so bold, I would like to suggest that you consider changing. While obviously the economics of your publication require the acceptance of advertisements, the placement of these commercial messages among the pages of text is distasteful. Recognizing that advertisers like to have their messages on or opposite pages of text, nevertheless, you lose some dignity by so doing. May I respectfully suggest that you take a leaf from the “National Geographic” and place them at either the front or back of the magazine, or both, action which would, I submit, greatly improve your format and enhance the appearance.”

and yet another,

“Dear Sir, I do wish that it could be arranged to keep advertising matter out of the body of the magazine and confine it to the end papers, but then I suppose that your advertisers have a say in this and they must be considered.”
(did you notice how that guy answered his own complaint?)

the editors then replied with this,

“we are afraid that we often have to walk the knife-edge of reader-disapproval and advertising income.”

those editors are a bunch of pansies.

so then i’m curious and i look at every page of this “otherwise excellent publication” and i only found two (2) ads within the pages of that magazine. two ads! they’re complaining about two measley ads? wow. if only life were so horrible.

i wonder if either of those two right honorable gentlemen have read the National Geographic lately? well, i have. and buddy, there’s more than two ads within the pages of that thing.

apparently that magazine also has a motto or creed, for at the top of the first page, right above the table of contents there’s a crest of some sort and then there’s this,

No part of our globe, no individual living on it, but is affected in some way by the history and genius of the British Nation

that sentence doesn’t sound right, does it? it’s like there’s two different thoughts going on and they’re joined by a conjuction that doesn’t conjuct. or something. hey! it’s like reading the weekly! it’s confusing and profound thus making you read it twice only to find out that it’s completely self-congratulatory! i need one of those!

or maybe….i need TEN OF THOSE!!!

so here’s my list of ten (10) confusing sentences that could be the creed of the weekly.

10. we renounce the use of capitalization only to conform to most other rules of grammar. sometimes.
9. we promise to never complete a thought, even if it still makes sense.
8. in theory, no part of the globe is safe from the weekly. we promise.
7. no standard will be upheld or downheld with which what else would we hold onto?
6. if not for the weekly, there would always be a number 6.
5. in the face of adversity we rise to subverse the perverse only to reverse that first act and then proceed to knock down the wall of intolerance, injustice, and of course, the spanish armada!
4. the truth is stranger than fiction but both are more well written than the weekly.
3. in cases of emergency, we dare to break the glass, even if there is no emergency. we just like to break glass. that’s our promise to you.
2. serving over 90 persons weekly. and yes, you should be scared.
1. MY HEAD’s BEEN SEWN TO THE CARPET!!

yikes, did you notice how i kept using the pronoun “we”? scary.

ok, now it’s your turn. i haven’t challenged you guys in a while so this should really come to no surprise. why don’t you guys come up with a strange motto for the weekly? you don’t have to send in ten of them. one will do. actually half of one would work.

i’ll post any of them i get in next week’s episode. until then…try not to get your head sewn to the carpet.

jaimie “but is affected in some way” pickle

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