Where Angels Fear
Jul 22, 2017 · 3 min read

Duck-Billed Platitude

I’m pretty sure I coined that phrase myself ¹.

Be that as it may, however, the real point I was going to make was …

Build a man a fire, and he’ll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he’ll be warm for the rest of his life.

— Terry Pratchett, Jingo.

If I’d been his editor, I’d have suggested ‘Set a man a fire and he’ll be warm for a day but set a man afire and he’ll be warm for the rest of his life.’ — it has the harmonious ‘a fire/afire’ thing going for it.

Also, I’d’ve told him to drop the so called ‘Oxford Comma’ because it’s stylistically bad — if you find yourself having to resort to it, you need to rewrite your stuff properly — and because there wasn’t even a need for it in the ‘traditional’ sense anyway … not in that sentence.

<Ahem>

Now that I’m done criticising one of the greatest authors of all time …

I was going to burble on about fish, Lewis Carroll, children’ books, dangerous wildlife and people whose blood and bones make the soil on the sides of volcanoes supremely fertile, but I think I’ll leave that for another day; I’m going to a party ³ soon and need to ensure I‘ve got everything vital that I might need in the next 48 hours — Passport? … check .

Some other time then … seeya.

¹ There are a handful of such that sprang to mind, in moments of inspiration, that I am 99% certain I never heard anyone else say, nor ever read, anywhere before that that, in later years, I noticed in use further afield, by complete strangers — I’m allowing a generous 1% margin of error to allow for false memory syndrome ², but I’m pretty sure that’s not the case.

² Also because I can’t be bothered to write ‘99.999 recurring percent’.

³ Yes, that’s it … a party … all above board and perfectly legit … just people enjoying a lawful social gathering— move along now … there’s nothing to see here.

⁴ With any luck it’ll turn out to be one of those sorts of parties — next thing you know, I’ll be waking up in Bulgaria, next to a former Swedish model by the name of Helga, with two children aged 2 and 3 … and no idea how I got there or what I’ve been doing for the last five years .

⁵ Hey … it’s happened to me before … many times!

⁶ Okay, so, her name wasn’t Helga … and she didn’t have kids … and we weren’t in Bulgaria … but the rest of it has happened to me on more than one occasion .

⁷ Looking back on it all, I could probably work out how I came to find myself in the various places I did, if I put my mind to it … but that’s a minor detail in my experience — model … porn star … brothel proprietress … details, schmetails.

What year was it again? Oh, yes … so, I was in <country>, doing <things> because <it probably seemed like a good idea at the time> .

⁹ I think … probably … possibly … my memory is a little hazy ¹⁰.

¹⁰ I’ve spent a considerable amount of my life … years at a stretch in fact … going out for the evening with the intent of returning home later, only for ‘later’ to turn out to be three months later — out for three months … home for one night … out for three months …. home for one night — not because of any scheduled/planned matters but because that was just what happened: I went to visit people, went to parties, got waylaid or simply distracted, got home three months later … you know how it goes.

¹¹ One of these days …

    There he goes. One of God's own prototypes. A high-powered mutant of some kind never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live and too rare to die.

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