One day Nasreddin borrowed a pot from   his neighbour Ali. The next day he      returned it with another little pot     inside. "That's not mine," said Ali.    "Yes it is," said Nasreddin. "While     your pot was staying with me, it had a  baby."                                  One week later Nasreddin asked Ali to   lend him the pot again. Ali agreed and  waited to see if Nasreddin would again  give him back two pots. A week passed.  Eventually Ali lost patience and went   to demand his pot. "I am afraid your    pot has died," said Nasreddin. "Died!"  said Ali. "How can a pot die?" "Well,   you believed me when I told you that    your pot had had a baby," said          Nasreddin.                              George Bernard Shaw and Winston         Churchill apparently disliked each      other. The story is told that the       playwright once sent Churchill two      tickets for the opening night of one of his plays, together with a card which   said, "Bring a friend (if you have      one)."                                                                          Churchill, however, managed to get the  better of this exchange.  He returned   the tickets, enclosing a note which     said, "I shall be busy that evening.    Please send me two tickets for the      second night (if there is one)."  There is no record of whether Shaw ever sent  the tickets.                                                                    Travellers in big cities can be mugged  and robbed, even within the walls of    their hotels.  Knowing this, an         elderly woman visitor to Miami was      worried when she saw two armed men      leading a large dog getting into the    elevator in which she was going to her  room.  Her worst fears were confirmed   when she heard one of them say "Down,   Lady!  On the floor!"  She lay down     and waited, expecting the worst.        "Excuse me, madam", said a voice.  "Why are you lying down like that?"  "But    you just told me to", she answered.     "I'm sorry, madam", said the man.  "I   didn't mean you to do that. I was       talking to the dog.  Her name's Lady."                                          Bertrand Russell's famous paradox asks  us to imagine the city of Seville in    the days when it was just a small       village.  In those days the village had just one barber, who was a man,         and that barber shaved all the men of   the village except the men who shaved   themselves.                                                                     Now, if you believe the last sentence,  you are left with a problem: who shaved the barber? If he shaved himself, then  it cannot be true that he shaved all    the men EXCEPT those who shaved         themselves. If somebody else shaved him or if he wore a beard, then it cannot   be true that the barber shaved ALL the  men except those who shaved themselves. Zeno's paradox tells of a race between  Achilles and the tortoise.  Since       Achilles could run much faster, he      gave the tortoise a start.  He waited   until the tortoise was half way along   the track before he started.  When he   reached the halfway point, the          tortoise had moved on some distance.    When he reached the point where the     tortoise had been, again the tortoise   had moved a little way forward.  Since  this would happen an infinite number    of times, Zeno says, Achilles would     never overtake the tortoise.  In real   life, as we know, Achilles will         overtake the tortoise and win the       race.                                                                           The violinist Enesco once had a pupil   whose father was very rich.  The        father hired a hall so that his son     could give a violin recital, and        insisted that Enesco should accompany   the boy on the piano. Enesco agreed     reluctantly, since he knew the boy      could not play very well. The father    advertised the concert in the papers,   and there was a large audience, among   whom Enesco saw his friend Alfred       Cortot, the famous pianist.  Enesco     asked him to come and turn the pages.   So the man who should have played the   violin played the piano.  The man who   should have played the piano turned the pages.  And the man who should have     turned the pages played the violin.     If you can keep your head when all      about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself    when all men doubt you, But make        allowance for their doubting too; If    you can wait and not be tired by        waiting, Or being lied about, don't     deal in lies, Or being hated, don't     give way to hating; And yet don't look  too good or talk too wise: If you can   fill the unforgiving minute With sixty  seconds worth of distance run, Yours is the earth and everything that's in it,  And what is more, you'll be a man, my   son.                                                                                                                                                            To be or not to be: that is the         question: Whether 'tis nobler in the    mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms     against a sea of troubles, And by       opposing end them? To die: to sleep; No more; and, by a sleep to say we end The heart-ache and the thousand natural     shocks That flesh is heir to, 'tis a    consummation Devoutly to be wish'd.  To die, to sleep;  To sleep: perchance to  dream: ay, there's the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come     When we have shuffled off this mortal   coil, Must give us pause.                                                                                                                                       I wandered lonely as a cloud            That floats on high o'er dales and      hills,                                  When all at once I saw a crowd,         A host of golden daffodils,             Beside the lake, beneath the trees,     Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.                                           Continuous as the stars that shine      And twinkle in the Milky Way,           They stretched in  never-ending line    Along the margin of a bay.              Ten thousand saw I at a glance,         Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.                                                                                                                                                                 Un jeune homme de la banlieue de        Londres a ‚t‚ condamn‚ jeudi … trois    mois de prison pour avoir tu‚ son       chien en le faisant r“tir dans le four  de sa cuisiniŠre. M. Denzil Richards,   19 ans, qui habite Killingham (Kent), a ‚galement ‚t‚ condamn‚ par le tribunal  … dix ans de suspension de sa           "vignette … chien" qui est delivr‚e     aprŠs le versement de l' imp“t sur les  chiens, qui s' ‚lŠve … 37,5 pence par   an (environ 4 FF). La police avait ‚t‚  alert‚e au d‚but du mois de janvier par un voisin et le jeune homme a admis     avoir plac‚ son chien dans le four      parce qu' il avait sali la moquette de  l' appartement.                                                                 Un jour elle se dit en regardant la     montagne: -- Comme on doit ˆtre bien    l…-haut! Quel plaisir de gambader dans  la bruyŠre, sans cette maudite longe    qui vous ‚corche le cou!... C' est bon  pour l' ƒne ou pour le boeuf de brouter dans un clos!... Les chŠvres, il leur   faut du large. A partir de ce moment,   l' herbe du clos lui parut fade. L'     ennui lui vint. Elle maigrit, son lait  se fit rare. C' ‚tait piti‚ de la voir  tirer tout le jour sur sa longe, la     tˆte tourn‚e du c“t‚ de la montagne, la narine ouverte, en faisant Mˆ!...       tristement. M. Seguin s' appercevait    bien que sa chŠvre avait quelque chose, mais il ne savait pas ce que c' ‚tait.                                          To every thing there is a season, and   a time to every purpose under the       heaven: a time to be born, and a time   to die; a time to plant, and a time to  pluck up that which is planted; a time  to kill, and a time to heal; a time to  break down, and a time to build up; a   time to weep, and a time to laugh; a    time to mourn, and a time to dance; a   time to cast away stones, and a time    to gather stones together; a time to    embrace, and a time to refrain from     embracing; a time to keep, and a time   to cast away; a time to rend, and a     time to sew; a time to keep silence,    and a time to speak; a time to love,    and a time to hate; a time of war, and  a time of peace.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        My chief duty as an office boy was to   copy letters. Only very few             communications were then typewritten.   There were no female typists and only   the most senior of the staff had male   shorthand writers attached to them.     All inter-office and ordinary letters   to clients were written in copying ink  by the clerks concerned, and all these  letters had to be copied by damping     the tissue-paper leaves of a huge       book, inserting the letters,            separating them with waterproof paper,  and putting the book into a heavy iron  press. The letters were removed and     put into envelopes, most of which I     think I had to write the address on.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Now that we in Great Britain have       converted our weather to Celsius and    our rugby football grounds to metres,   to say nothing of buying beer by the    decilitre and paying for it with        decimal currency, it seems odd that we  persist in dividing the day into 24     hours, each hour into 60 minutes, and   each of those into 60 seconds. The      Society for Decimal Time has a better   idea: a 10-hour day with 100 minutes    in each hour and 100 seconds to the     minute. The new hour will last 2.4      times as long as the traditional one,   and each new 'heavy' minute will 1.44   of the old minutes. But the decimal     second will actually be slightly        shorter at .88 of the present second.