While we digest the latest on the Trump tariffs...

...here's something completely different.

Tom Swift was a character, in pre-war books for boys like Tom Swift and His Electric Flying Machine". Tom never just said anything. He said it in a certain way, defined by an adverb. Examples: 

"Where's my favourite newsmagazine?" said Tom timelessly. 

"Who publishes Time and Life?" asked Tom loosely. 

Here's more.

I hope Walt will return soon, said Ed. shorthandedly.

Before the tariffs kick in

Walt is out shopping for locally made goods, before the Trump tariffs kick in, making everything which crosses the World's Longest Undefended Border(TM) more expensive. Trouble is, just about everything in the stores at the Olde Forte Mudge Mall is Made in [Communist] China! 

While you're thinking about that -- President Trump doesn't seem to have thought about it -- consider this.

Walt's advice: Buy local...if you can!

In times like these...

...we need all the laughs we can get. Here are two excellent funny bits sent along by Agent 9, to whom Walt would tip his biretta, if he had one. [You don't have a gun? Ed.] 

This one is a rare two-fer... a two puns for one!

Walt is awaiting the conclusion of the show trial, and predicts an acquittal. Why? Because (according to our legal beagle) the offence has to prove that the "hush money" was paid to cover up a crime. 

But so far there has been lots of evidence of President Trump's dalliance with the slutty lady, but no evidence of any crime! If having sex outside the bounds of matrimony were a crime, the majority of "our crowd" would have been in the crowbar hotel long ago. 

Lifetime pct .988. Get yer bets down now, at the usual address.

Butch the Rooster: a parable for the next election

Agent 9 has been contemplating the campaigns for high office currently unfolding in Canada and the Excited States of America. He has sent us the following fable, complete with moral. It's the story of Butch the Rooster.

Sarah was in the fertilized egg business. She had several hundred young pullets and ten roosters to fertilize the eggs. She kept records, and any rooster not performing was replaced and consigned to the soup pot.

Keeping track of who was doing his duty and who wasn't took a lot of time, so she bought some tiny bells and attached them to her roosters. Each bell had a different tone, so she could tell from a distance which rooster was performing. Now, she could sit on the porch and fill out an efficiency report just by listening to the bells.

Sarah's favourite rooster, old Butch, was a very fine specimen but one morning she noticed that his bell hadn't rung at all! When she went to investigate, she saw the other roosters were busy chasing pullets, bells-a-ringing, but when the pullets heard the roosters coming, they would run for cover.

Old Butch was smarter. To Sarah's amazement, old Butch held his bell in his beak so it couldn't ring. He'd sneak up on a pullet, do his job, and walk on to the next one.

Sarah was so proud of old Butch that she entered him in a show, where he became an overnight sensation among the judges. They not only awarded old Butch the "No Bell Piece Prize", but the "Pulletsurprise" as well!

Clearly old Butch was a politician in the making. Who else but a politician could figure out how to win two of the most coveted awards on our planet by being the best at sneaking up on the unsuspecting populace and screwing them when they weren't paying attention?

Moral: Vote carefully in the next election. You can't always hear the bells!

"Don't touch that! It's H2SO4!" shouted Tom acidly

Most of Walt's readers are probably too young to remember Tom Swift. Tom Swift -- Tom Swift Jr., in the second series -- is the central character in five series of books of American juvenile sci-fi and adventure novels. The first book in the series appeared in 1910, and new titles have been published as recently as 2007, bringing the number of Tom Swift Books to over 100.

Translated into many languages, the books have sold over 30 million copies worldwide. Tom Swift has also been the subject of a board game and a television show. Development of a feature film based on the series was announced in 2008, but as far as I know, it never went into production.

What makes Tom Swift interesting to me is the way he talked. The numerous ghost writers who penned Tom Swift (under the name of Victor W. Appleton) never let Tom say anything simply. There was always an adverb following the quote to describe how Tom said it -- sternly, seriously, happily and so on.

This was such a cliché that people started making jokes about it -- puns or "Wellerisms". Examples: "Let's have a Judy Garland show!", said Tom gaily. - "Where's my favourite picture magazine?", asked Tom Lifelessly - "I can't find my old board game," said Tom Cluelessly.

Apparently Walt is not the only fan of these jokes, known for decades now as "Tom Swifties". This morning I discovered a whole website devoted to Tom Swifties, which includes a link to a dictionary of them. "I recommend it to all lovers of puns and word play," said Tom encouragingly! [That wasn't a very good one. Ed.]