Our Plastic Friend

More popular than ever, the credit card is our first choice when parting ways with hard-earned pay. Its ease of use encourages impulse buying, a boon to both economy and consumer alike. Sadly, there is another side to the credit card. That's where you'll find the security code. Also, the dark cloud of revolving debt looms large in our society. The average card holder is thousands in the hole. It's time to end the stigma. Let's be clear: there is no shame in being in debt. It just makes you a social pariah, that's all. And a lousy provider for your family.

We asked the man on the street for his opinion. He replied in favour of the pill, but within the first trimester only. He then expounded his views on the credit card: "I'll embrace the credit card today, but will it still fund me tomorrow?"

The present system was dreamed up by Frank McNamara in the fifties. One evening he found himself in a restaurant without enough money to pay. After calling his wife to come bail him out, he reflected: "We need a system where people the world over can be bailed out by my wife." McNamara's wife did not share his enthusiasm, and so he compromised his vision by inventing the credit card instead.

McNamara had to call his wife to bail him out. Before she arrived, these three were hidden under the table.

From the Past XIII

"I prefer to fish here. It's damp by the water."

From the Past XII

"Marvellous, my dear. What did you call it? Bohemian Rhapsody?"

In Praise of Hooray

As Russia's incomparable ballet company makes its first tour in the West, it will be accompanied by a tall, pashalic man. Next to him stands Sol Hooray, a short, bald, bespectacled man, who is the company's founder and director. Hooray is often heard to say, "Who is this tall, pashalic man standing by me?" But nobody knows. He once asked the man himself.

"Who are you?" asked Hooray.
"I'm alright, how are you?" replied the tall, pashalic man.
"That's an old joke."
"You would know!"
"Look, must you follow me everywhere I go?"
"I could take afternoons off, if you prefer."
"That's fine. Break at the matinee and find me again for tea."

It was an arrangement that would last a lifetime. A few days later, the tall, pashalic man walked in front of a bus and was run down. He'd had a sore throat for days. Then the bus struck him dead.

Hooray attends every performance of his ballet troupe. He sits in a box seat, applauds wildly, and beams at the audience, who he considers his personal guest. "Come in, come in!" he waves to them as they enter the auditorium, which some consider a warm gesture, if a touch superfluous. Hooray is entitled to his proprietary attitude. The troupe is entirely his creation, the final result of years of labor, and the crowning achievement of his career as a milkman. In these uncertain times, you never know where you might end up.

The august pronouncement "S. Hooray Presents" has appeared at the top of billboards for so long, even during other months of the year, that people simply equate its presence with the ballet. They don't consider that behind the name stands a real man, and, until recently, another man—tall and pashalic—stood next to him.

Last Friday, the troupe made its debut performance in London and was a great success. Hooray awaited the opening with eagerness. "People have waited years for this. When the curtain goes up, there could be only horses on stage*. It would still be amazing!"

* This is hyperbole. The company tried it once to gauge audience response. Most left before intermission, except one man who stayed to see what the horses would do next. It was dubbed a failure by everybody involved. The stagehand especially was displeased. It was the first time he'd cleared a stage with a shovel.

Photo Album XII

"Compliments to the artist, Jenkins, but please stop saying you sat for them."

Photo Album XI

Last of the chamber pot hunters, with quarry.

Letters to the Editor

Socks, Stockings, and All That Magazine

Sirs:
My hearty congratulations for the excellent series, "Argyle - The Untold Story". As a collector of vintage foot garments, I envy your success in shedding new light on a well-worn subject.
J. P. WARD
Foxton, Cambs.

Sirs:
Pearl Chandler is considered the first of the hosiery bad girls of the early twentieth century. Inspired by newspaper accounts of her daring prison escape, H. Dannenberg wrote Knee Highs at Noon, one of the best penny dreadfuls of the undergarment genre.
R. WOODS
Wanborough, Wilts.

Sirs:
Is it not true that Molly Crane travelled 6,000 miles to put on a pair of socks she'd only ever seen in print? In his diary, J. Leigh, owner of said socks, wrote: "I had met her years before, but was not favourably impressed by her personal appearance. She wore woolen anklets in late spring." Some time after this encounter, Molly became a missionary and left her hometown. Later, upon reading a magazine feature about Leigh's socks, she summarily renounced Jesus and made a "pilgrimage" back home. She was intent on finding the socks and when Leigh caught wind of this, he secreted them in a safety deposit box. Molly never did locate them. In old age, she took to wearing a miniature, sock-shaped pendant, which in times of need she would embrace piously.
B. MONTGOMERY
Uckington, Gloucs.

Sirs:
The puff piece on our leather brothers and sisters was most welcome. However, your portrait of the great crakows of the fifteenth century were, in fact, not crakows, but their less-pointy predecessors. Respectfully, your magazine must issue a retraction at once.
E. SIDNEY
Horsey, Norf.

Sirs:
Many forward-thinking people consider the argyle sock one of the greatest designs in history. Greatest, not in terms of its pattern, but in terms of its morality, objectivity, and elasticity.
G. CROSS
Pityme, Corn.

The argyle sock: why we do what we do.

Stinkhaus's Rise to Failure

Henry Stinkhaus started strong. In a 1968 world tournament, he won the gold medal for show jumping. He jumped over My Fair Lady which was off-Broadway at the time. Ten years later he won the silver medal. Soon after that, bronze. Now, he mostly receives encouraging notes. Riding and Falling, the fifth book in his autobiographical trilogy, was much maligned by equine enthusiasts. In 2006, Stinkhaus was awarded a lifetime disappointment award. He received a collect call from the president.

President: "Please stop calling me."
Stinkhaus: "You called me, Mr. President."
President: "You've left sixty messages on the Oval Office answerphone. What did you want, son?
Stinkhaus: "Father, is that you?"

Stinkhaus and his wife reside in Connecticut, USA. They have one child, who, even at a young age, is displaying no signs of natural talent.

Stinkhaus in a failed show jump. He stalled the horse midway.

Ancient Olympics

The first Olympic games were held every four years in the Olympia Valley of Greece. Legend has it* that a man with great deformities around the biceps originated the games. That man's name was Herakles, or Hercules to the Romans, and simply Cules to the modern, socially conscious person. Apparently, King Eurystheus ordered Herakles to clean out King Augeas's stables, which had not been cleaned in a year. Augeas was a horder. Eurystheus had learned this watching a reality TV show in which Augeas was encouraged to give up piles of garbage. Weeping uncontrollably, Augeas decided instead to feed the producers to the lions. These were different times, but it was great television. Now Augeas's hand was once again being forced; Herakles was on the case. A man of obscene strength, Herakles could fight a lion with his bare hands. What's more, he could fight a bear with his lion hands (well, why not?). Summoning all his power, Herakles changed the course of two rivers so they flowed through the stables—an inspired action resulting in fifty years of hosepipe bans. The stables were cleaned by the water, however. Augeas was a broken man, and fed himself to the lions. "Praise Zeus! From hereon we will play atheletic games, every four years!" said Herakles—a natural proclamation under the circumstances.

* A legend is not to be doubted, unless the legend hosted British television in the seventies.

From the Past XI

1888: The construction of the Eiffel Tower, shortly before they put in the pickpockets.

From the Past X

English travellers to ancient Greece often brought home 'naughty coins'.

Henry's New Clothes

SCENE: Royal dressing room.
AT RISE: King Henry VIII is trying on a royal mantle. Standing next to him is Thomas Cromwell.

CROMWELL: You look sensational.
HENRY (holding the mantle in front of himself): No hood. Just as I like it.
CROMWELL: This cloth will hang on you like a dream.
HENRY (now putting on the mantle): Hanging is no good, a swift cut along the neck is most preferable.
CROMWELL: Aren't you glad you came to me, King Henry?
HENRY: I am still a lost cause, Cromwell.
CROMWELL: Nonsense. (Handing Henry a bouquet of flowers) These are for you, marking the first day of the rest of your life...
(Henry takes the flowers and begins absent-mindedly chopping off the flower heads.)
HENRY: It's a burden, being a ruler by divine right. I'm not sure if I have the chops.
CROMWELL: Come to the mirror.
(They approach a mirror, which is hanging from the dressing room wall in an ornately-decorated frame.)
HENRY: That will do for this half of me.
CROMWELL: Let's bring another. (He runs to the opposite side of the room, takes down a second mirror hanging there, and returns to Henry, placing the second mirror at the side of the first.) There, now we can see all of you.
(Henry raises his empty hand, as if holding an axe, and, chuckling to himself, starts slashing at his own neckline in the mirror.)
CROMWELL (coughing, to interject): Dear Henry, you are to look into your own eyes in the mirror and say "I am the King!" And keep saying it, until you believe it!
(Henry starts mumbling "I am the King" to himself. Cromwell opens a box and pulls out a bejewelled crown.)
CROMWELL: Turn to me, Henry. Who are you?
HENRY: I am the King!
CROMWELL: Good! (He places the bejewelled crown on Henry's head.) Now, look at yourself again.
(Henry turns to the mirror and looks pleasantly surprised.)
HENRY: Oh my god!
CROMWELL: Do you like it?
HENRY: It's marvelous. I'm so happy. I'm going to give all my ministers free beheadings. (Wiping a tear from his cheek.) Cromwell, I'm very grateful to you.
CROMWELL: Think nothing of it.
Henry raises a real axe to Cromwell's neck.
HENRY: May I?
CROMWELL: Oh, certainly. Say hello to the ministers for me.
HENRY: I will, old friend.
(Henry brings axe down - LIGHTS OUT at the moment the axe would behead Cromwell.)

CURTAIN

From the Past IX

"Shine your gloves, Miss?"