WIDER STILL AND WIDER

Hello....

......and welcome to September's edition of The Autolycan.  This month's story follows on from July's effort,  which was about a poor chap who'd ordered 2000 trains that were too wide for the platforms they were intended to serve.  Unwisely, I'd called that story Wider Still and Wider, but in fact that's a much better title for this story - you'll see why when you read it.  So I've re-titled the earlier one, which now trades under the name of Wide Boy.   If you're new to the blog, or if you would like to refresh your memory, do please go back to the July edition before embarking on this one.  Hope you enjoy it, because I now think it's pretty unlikely that there'll be an October edition since the Autolycuses will be exploring the USA!

WIDER STILL AND WIDER

Paris faces €6m bill to replace metro escalators made too wide

Thirty escalators in the Paris Metro system will have to be replaced because they are 'too wide' at a cost of millions of euros 

                                                                                                                        Daily Telegraph

When the last Commissary of the Demesne of Sequelle on the island of Alderney began writing a regular blog in 1824 he not unnaturally called it The Aldernican. He would take headlines from the public prints of the day and embroider tales round them which purported to tell the stories behind the headlines. Sometimes he would add an anagram or two which he hoped were pointed and witty.

The Commissary's main problem was that then – even more than now – not a lot happened on Alderney, and he was sometimes frankly stuck for material. The public prints themselves were clearly struggling – recent front page headlines had included

Alderney Man's Hedge Grows A Bit More

Alderney Woman Trips – Narrowly Escapes Grazed Knee

and

Royal Tour Set To Omit Alderney

So the Commissary had to make the most of what little he was given, and sometimes this meant that The Aldernican would include a second – alternative – story using the same headline. One such follow up story, for example, envisaged what might have happened had Alderney Woman actually grazed her knee. He also experimented with combining stories so that a third version dealt with the consequences of her tripping over a trailing branch of Alderney Man's uncut hedge and went on to thank God that His Majesty wasn't there to witness the carnage.

Back in 1824 there was no word to define a story that followed on from an earlier one, at least not on Alderney, so in his slightly aristocratic way the Commissary decided to name such a tale after his own office, describing his first attempt as a 'Sequelle.'

English visitors, of course, could not cope with anything sounding slightly French like 'Sequelle' and so the word was corrupted to 'sequel' and came to mean pretty much anything that followed something else. Later linguistic analysts, by the way, have argued – less than convincingly – that Eric Cantona's famous remark about seagulls and trawlers was evidence not so much of a deep and enigmatic personality, but rather of his imperfect command of English. Eric was in fact referring to his film acting career and trying to convey the fact that the star's scenes can be shown when sequels follow trailers.

Perhaps your first reaction when you came across this story about escalators on the Paris Metro was the same as mine. 'Hello,' I said to myself, 'Jean-Claude's got another job.' And then I thought about the last Commissary and his idea of a 'sequelle.' What did happen to Jean-Claude after his fiasco with the over-wide trains? I needed to know.

So I went to SNCF's train purchasing offices, which is where, you may remember, we left a mortified Jean-Claude. Friends and former colleagues were sympathetic to him, feeling he'd been unfairly vilified and that it hadn't really been his fault. Nevertheless he'd been severely chastened by the experience, and worked hard at redeeming himself. He showed initiative and took responsibility. He had so impressed the Maître with his new approach that the older man was pleased to allow Jean-Claude to handle the arrangements for his retirement.

The mix up over the Maître's leaving present really wasn't Jean-Claude's fault. The Maître had set his heart on a particular gas barbecue and had, with his own hands, built a patio in a part of his garden that caught the evening sun. He had added a brick built bay to house the barbecue itself. Owing to a small error in copying the model number, Jean-Claude had purchased a model that was not only superior to the one the Maître had requested, but also a few centimetres too wide for the bay. The Maître though was going on a long holiday immediately after retirement and had left instructions for the barbecue to be installed in his absence. Jean-Claude found a local builder to make the necessary alterations to the bay, and if the Maître ever realised what had happened he didn't say.

The relationship between the two men grew closer, and it wasn't long before Jean-Claude started dating the Maître's daughter. It really wasn't his fault that the name on the flowers he sent her was spelt wrong – Nicolle was after all an unusual spelling – and neither was it his fault that they were sent to the wrong address. The two villages with similar names were often mixed up, and fortunately the unintended recipients were good hearted enough to correct the spelling of Nicolle's name and redeliver Jean-Claude's romantic gift. If she ever realised what had happened she didn't say.

Nicolle and Jean-Claude became inseparable, and he determined that he would declare his love for her with a truly memorable proposal. A few of the more churlish souls in the village were inclined to argue that proposing to the wrong girl was a pas rather worse than merely faux, but that really wasn't Jean-Claude's fault either. He decided that the proposal should be broadcast live by her favourite DJ on her favourite programme, and in order to get his request noticed had inscribed it on a lavish card which he had sent to the DJ. Whether it was his handwriting or the DJ's carelessness was never quite clear, but his impassioned proposal to Nicola was not only read out live on air but breathlessly accepted a few minutes later in a phone call to the station by a former girlfriend. Happily, both Nicolle and the Maître saw the funny side, although that was more than could be said for a large tattooed man who very soon paid Jean-Claude a less than social visit claiming to be Nicola's current beau.

It was fortunate that the best man realised that there were two churches of the same name in the area, and was able to divert Jean-Claude to the right one on the morning of the wedding, but perhaps even more fortunate that the groom presented himself on the right day. It really wasn't his fault that his diary was one of a batch that was supposed to have been withdrawn and pulped because of a printing error, although the naysayers were inclined to argue that the penny should have dropped when he told the best man to turn up on 31^st June. Never has the term 'best man' been more apt.

His friendship with his father in law flourished, and when the Maître took a part time job as Non-Executive Director on the Paris Metro it was perhaps inevitable that Jean-Claude should find a job in the purchasing office some months later. Chastened by his SNCF experience he was for a long time a model of conscientious diligence, and it was a pity that it was he who signed the fateful escalator order because the débâcle really wasn't his fault. He had conducted the tendering process with meticulous care, and once the contractor – a British company - had been chosen, he was equally precise in drawing up the exact specifications. Indeed, it was because he was dealing with a foreign company that he was particularly concerned to make sure that the details were very clearly set out, which was why he had reinforced the printed order form with a handwritten instruction in English:-

OVERALL HEIGHT OF EACH STEP - 25cm

OVERALL WIDTH OF EACH STEP - ONE METRE 21cm

Poor Jean-Claude. That was his undoing. Jean-Claude was French. Jean-Claude had written '21cm' in the way he had written '21cm' all his life. Had Jean-Claude meant '27cm' he would have written '27cm.'  With a barred seven.  To distinguish it from a one.  The British supplier didn't know that. Six centimetres makes quite a difference when it comes to escalator width. So when the story hit the headlines he was held up to public ridicule all over again. Poor Jean-Claude.

There were no escalators on Alderney back in 1824, but if there had been there's no telling how many stories the resourceful last Commissary might have wrung from such riches. Falling women grazing their knees because the escalator jammed. Embarrassment when the King came to perform the official opening ceremony only to find the official ribbon six centimetres too short.    A more reflective piece on whether the Revenue Protection Squad would penalise passengers stuck on immobile escalators for failing to board trains stuck miles away? (Answer : yes.)  The Aldernican would have had a lifetime's material.

Except it wouldn't, because as he grew older the last Commissary found the pace and bustle of life on the island too much for him. He couldn't keep up with the burgeoning vegetation and minor mishaps that shouldered their way into his increasingly stressful days. He wanted somewhere quieter, and when his term of office came to an end, he moved away to a tiny dot of land some miles from the Alderney mainland. The tiny dot of land was called Prequelle, and in later years the Commissary found himself more interested in exploring antecedents and origins, and started to write stories about what had happened in the past to help bring great events about. He didn't know what to call such a story, but felt sure something would occur to him.

And occur to him it plainly did, or we wouldn't have the word 'prequel' today. Every story he'd ever written could now have an overture as well as a coda – a beginning, a middle and an end. To his astonishment, this made his writing popular. His fame grew as more and more people sat up and took notice of his endeavours. The consequences of his efforts were immeasurable.

Poor Jean-Claude had no such luck. His fame also grew as more and more people sat up and took notice of his endeavours, but in his case only because the consequences of his efforts were all too measurable.

ANAGRAM CORNER

                              SCOTTISH REFERENDUM

                         MUST I CEDE NORTH, SERF?