CORRECT ME IF I'M WRONG......

Hello, and welcome to June's edition of The Autolycan.  It's about how we're all wrong about most things most of the time, which in one way makes things very difficult for writers who prize factual accuracy above all else.  Fortunately, Master Autolycus has never been one of those, and it's a safe bet that most of what you're about to read is wrong.  Do let me know if you find anything that's accurate.

CORRECT ME IF I'M WRONG.....

BRITISH PUBLIC WRONG ABOUT NEARLY EVERYTHING, SURVEY SHOWS

                                                                                                                 The Independent

The Man on the Clapham Omnibus – whom we shall henceforth call MOCO in order to conserve electrons – drained his glass and let out a long, satisfied sigh.

'I don't know what the next thing you're going to say is,' he remarked to the Man In The Street – ditto, MIS – 'but whatever it is, you're wrong.'

'Am I?'

'Definitely.'

'How do you know that, then?'

'Says here,' said MOCO, pointing to his paper, British Public Wrong About Nearly Everything. Done a survey, haven't they, proves you're wrong. Well, we all are.'

MIS took a sip of ale and sat back thoughtfully.

'So........ they got a load of people to answer questions......' he said, slowly.

'Yeah.'

'…..and then decided everyone's wrong......'

'Yeah.'

Another sip and a long contemplative pause.

'…....but in that case the people what carried out the survey must be wrong as well, so if they say I'm wrong I must be right.'

A look of triumph crossed his face and he too drained his glass.

'That's what's called a logical panjandrum that is,' he added smugly, 'you could go mad trying to work it out. Blow a fuse, smoke coming out the ears, all that.'

'So what was it you was going to say next then?' enquired MOCO.

'I was going to say it must be my round.'

'Well you're definitely right about that.'

'Get that down you,' said MIS when he returned from the bar 'then we'd better have a couple more.'

MOCO raised his glass. 'Cheers. Better have a couple more? Why's that then?'

'Stands to reason. We're all supposed to drink eight glasses of water a day, right?'

'Well, yeah, everyone knows that.'

'Well this is – what – 80% water, give or take?'

'Right.....'

MIS took a deep draught and was silent while he savoured the beer.

'Aaah, beautiful. You see, if this is 80% water we need ten glasses of beer a day to make sure we get eight of water. Stands to reason.'

MOCO looked doubtful. 'I'm not sure it works like that.....'

MIS waved the objection aside.

'No question. It's all there in Magna Carta, I think it is.'

'Magna Carta?'

'Yeah. You see, the water wasn't safe then, so when they wrote Magna Carta they said you could have beer instead.'

He drank again.

'Who wrote Magna Carta then, enquired MOCO.

'Well,' began MIS 'the clue's in the title, isn't it? Magna means big, Carta is Spanish for menu. So it's a big menu. It sets out all these rules for eating and drinking, so it must have been written by a chef. Well, you know what chefs are for laying down the law – just look at that woman in the canteen at Norwich City, is it? No wonder they went down what with the stuff she cooks, my missus is always terrified to use one of her recipes case she gets it wrong and she finds out, she'd be straight round to ladle out the humiliation, she would, the missus would have to do Delia's Walk of Shame down the whole street, they'd all laugh.'

'So which chef wrote Magna Carta then?'

'History doesn't record that, but I reckon it would have been the chef to someone famous. Most likely Christopher Columbus' cook when he sailed off and discovered America. Stands to reason. Fresh water would have been tricky on the ship, so they'd have had beer instead. It all adds up. Your shout?'

'That Christopher Columbus,' mused MOCO when he returned from the bar with two more pints, 'the bloke with the chef, wasn't it him what come up the English Channel with his Armada, challenged Sir Francis Drake to a game of bowls and lost, and had to back off and sail home again?'

'That was him,' agreed MIS ' except he never got home, did he?'

'Didn't he?'

'No. Napoleon ambushed him at Trafalgar. He couldn't see Napoleon and so he couldn't fight properly. It was carnage.'

'Why couldn't he see Napoleon properly?'

'Napoleon was very, very short. Unusually short. Anyone'll tell you that. That's why his bodyguards tied him to a duck.'

'A duck?'

'Yeah.'

'Why did they do that then?'

'Well, everyone knows a duck's quack don't echo, right?'

'Well, yeah, everyone knows that.'

'So when it quacked they knew where he was and weren't confused by no echo.'

'Did it work?'

'No. They was French wasn't they? First chance they got they smoked it in Gauloise smoke and done it in a gravy made from oranges.

'You can't get oranges at Trafalgar.'

'No. The fact they had some showed there was a conspiracy against him. It's why he got thrashed at Austerlitz, was it? Never had a chance. Anyway, once the duck was gone, the bodyguard turned round and said 'let him eat cake' knowing there wasn't none. He had a hard time of it, Napoleon; probably explains why he was so short in the first place.'

MIS took another long pull of his drink.

'There's not a lot of people know that' he concluded.

MOCO looked up.

'Hang about. Wasn't that a line from a film?' he said.

'Definitely. But don't run away with the idea it was said by Napoleon. It's in The Sound of Music. Celia Johnson I think it is says it after she's sung about silver white winters, remember?

Silver white winters what melt into springs,

These are a few of my favourite things.

There's not a lot of people know that.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I think it was also her what said 'You're only supposed to blow the bloody doors off.''

'Sounds like Celia Johnson,' agreed MOCO 'but wasn't that in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang where they drive the car over the cliff and Humphrey Bogart says 'Hang on, lads; I got a great idea?''

'Except we never find out what his great idea is, do we?'

'No. He probably forgets himself after a bit. After all, we all only ever use about 10% of our brain power – it's a well known fact, that. Probably explains why Einstein failed Maths while he was at school.'

MIS nodded slowly.

'Just think' he mused 'If we all used ten times more brain power than what we do, what wouldn't we have invented?'

MOCO shook his head.

'Wouldn't have invented nothing at all' he said 'there'd just be ten times more surveys showing we was all ten times more wrong ten times more often about ten times more things. It'd be a nightmare.'

Silence fell for a few moments as they picked up their glasses, drank and wiped their lips.

'Perhaps Einstein saw all that coming' ventured MOCO.

'How do you mean?'

'Must have done, the more you think about it. He could see the reality that if we was all ten times brainier everything would be buggered up ten times worse even than it is now. Come to think, he wrote about it, didn't he? His Special Theory of Reality.'

'What did that say then?' enquired MIS, intrigued.

MOCO tried to look authoritative.

'Well,' he began 'it's a bit tricky to grasp if you haven't been to night school or nothing but among other things he reckons that in reality the quicker you travel the shorter you get.'

MIS was impressed. 'So could that have been Napoleon's problem?'

'No, because he reckoned you only get shorter in the direction of travel. So I suppose he might have got a bit thinner, but probably travelling on horseback isn't going to be quick enough to make much difference. Have you ever wondered though why it is that trains don't travel faster than what they do?'

'Yeah.......'

'Well, it's 'cos they're worried they might get shorter.'

'You mean, you could set off with ten carriages and only have nine when you got there?'

'That's right, stands to reason. Well, his reason anyway.'

'So they keep the speed down 'cos they're worried they might lose passengers?'

'No. They keep the speed down 'cos they're worried fare dodgers would get in the back coach and the ticket inspectors wouldn't be able to find them.'

MIS looked puzzled.

'Hang on' he began 'if the train gets shorter when you speed up, wouldn't it get longer again when you slowed down?'

'You mean, as you pulled into King's Cross all the fare dodgers would reappear?'

'Yeah.'

MOCO looked irritated.

'Yeah well. He had a theory for that as well.'

'What was that then?'

'His General Theory of it Being Your Round.'

They'd just started on the next pint when the door swung open and a newcomer entered, went up to the bar, bought a drink and crossed to their table.

'Evening.'

'Evening.'

'Mind if I join you?'

'Of course, yeah, sit down.'

'We was just having a very interesting conversation' began MOCO 'about the fact that most people are wrong about most things most of the time.'

The newcomer nodded and took a long pull.

'What, like you mean, for instance that people think lemmings commit mass suicide by jumping off cliffs?'

'Well, they do, don't they? Common knowledge, that'

'No, no. That's just cartoonists. A lot do die when they're migrating 'cos they drown, but they don't do it on purpose.'

MOCO and MIS exchanged slightly suspicious glances.

'What about,' began MIS 'what about when ostriches bury their heads in the sand 'cos they're afraid? That's true, surely?'

'Cartoonists again. They do dig large holes in the sand for their eggs, and they need to put their heads in to feed the chicks when they're hatched. From a distance it might look like they're burying their heads.'

The Man in the Street and The Man on the Clapham Omnibus stared.

'How do you know this stuff?' they enquired in unison, in a not altogether friendly fashion.

'Yeah... if people are mostly wrong about everything, how come you're so sure you're right?' added The Man on the Clapham Omnibus.

'S'pose I try not to take things at face value all the time. Think about things a bit, work out whether or not what I'm hearing makes sense. Go away and look things up if I'm not sure. Weigh it all up.'

The Man in the Street was astonished. 'Why would you want to do all that?' he asked.

The newcomer smiled broadly before taking another drink.

'Well, I'm Jo Soap, aren't I? Naturally inquisitive, I suppose' she said.

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ANAGRAM CORNER

The mainstream media has produced acres of comment on the recent upheavals in Europe.  So why not turn to The Autolycan for concise and pithy comment on the results of the

                                                          EURO ELECTIONS

                                                             EERIE!  LOCO!  NUTS!!