Have you ever wondered why on earth anybody would get into a train carriage, hotel, country house, or even the same town as Miss Marple or Jessica Fletcher*? everywhere these female sleuths would go, people would drop dead in the most grizzly manner and disasters would befall entire communities but no finger of suspicion was ever pointed at either lady, nor did any harm befall them personally. It was the strangest thing. Now an accumulation of circumstatial evidence suggests that my family would make excellent detectives from St Mary Mead or Cabot Cove; sewing the seeds of destruction by their mere presence in the general chronological and geographic vicinity of doom while avoiding injury themselves.
A selection of the evidence:
1973: My cousin Jim and I are born two weeks apart. 4 months later, the Yom Kippur war starts.
1974: My parents move to Cyprus. 6 months later the Turkish army invades, and a war ensues that resulted in a divided island. The division persists to this very day.
1975: Jehovah's Witnesses claimed that Armageddon would happen in 1975 and many of them sold their houses and businesses to prepare for the new world of paradise on earth which they believe will exist when Jesus comes back. The day after Christmas my brother is born and proves a disappointment to an entire religion.
December 12, 1988: Britain's deadliest train crash to date happens at Clapham Junction in South London. My parents, who rode that train everyday to work, are away on vacation.
July 7, 2005: Islamist terrorists strike the public transport system at several points around Kings Cross station, London, the terminus my parents pass through everyday on their way to work. Dad went in early: mum had the day off.
October 1, 2005: My mother and her husband Mark, visiting friends in Malaysia, take a side trip to Bali. A week later suicide bombers attack bars on the island.
October 29, 2005: A week after my cousin Jim shopped there, a bomb destroys a market in Delhi.
December 7, 2005: I post the infamous moustache picture, causing the biggest outbreak of global vomiting since the epidemic of the Norwalk Virus aboard cruise ships in 2002. Truly a day that will live in infamy.
December 11, 2005: Europe's biggest explosion and fire since 1945 rips through the fuel storage depot at Buncefield, just outside Hemel Hemstead in Herfordshire. My parents live 8 and 10 miles away from the the depot respectively.
It appears that the pace of disaster is accelerating. Not to be alarmist or anything, but anyone planning to attend the Weasel/Country Mouse nuptuials (where the biggest concentration of my relatives for quite a while is expected) might want to check that they have adequate life insurance.
(*Both played by Angela Lansbury in her long career. Perhaps she is the angel of death?)
13 comments:
Without question, Angela Lansbury is the angel of death. What unspeakable evil lies within?
Frankly, based on the above litany of disaster, I'm surprised that the Brunswick Bookland hasn't yet burst into flames.
Good point. I am beging to wonder if I was the inadvertent psychic cause of the fire at the neighbors' the other week....
God watches over us all, Debbie. I'm sure there is a special angel (perhaps one from the Dark Side) who has been assigned to keep an eye (or all three eyes) specifically on the Weasel, 24/7.
You or your family aren't planning any trips down under are you?
Debbie, no he isn't because he is a figment of your imagination.
Clokeeeey, good point- my dad was just in Australia and passed through Sydney on his way to his work in Adelaide. A couple of weeks later, riots break out.
RPS, track one, side one of the Stone's Beggar's Banquet. I am being watched over by Charlie Watts.
Don't even get me started.
The missus has recently become a member of the "hell in a handbasket " brigade.
This makes for an amusing shift in perspective at Bowles Towers. She doesn't come from any religious 'endgame' perspective, more just a brilliant yellow dog democrat"what's the fucking point?", no one's in charge, the new pope is a kraut, Voldemort for Prez type thing.
I remain an eternal optimist with a cynical edge.
Mondale, OK I won't.
Like Mrs. Mondale and yourself, I am torn between wanting to build a new Jerusalem and the old "eat drink and be merry for tomorrow you shall die" thing. Perhaps thats why they invented returnable bottles, to soothe both our appetites and our conciences.
Likewise Debbie, I won't.
However, I think I shall subtitle my mother "the female Zelig of Doom" as she seems to pop up most often just prior to calamity.
I must object to being labeled a disapointment to an entire religion. I was under the impression it is the done thing to wait until your mid thirties before starting.
Also this curse can work in our favour as I did see the Australian cricket team in their bus on route to the final ashes test this summer....one man's disaster is another man's gain and all that.
I'd just say that you're lucky! When you're dead, you should be embalmed, preserved, painted with a robust clear-coat and then installed on a plinth in a public place so that all us unlucky plebs can rub your nose and make a wish... ;-)
the female zelig of doom might be the best catchphrase in the history of the world.
Mikey, your suggestion is so close to my actual wish to be stuffed, preserved in a large jar, and have a wire run from my elbow and wrist to a foot pump so that I can be made to wave at people post mortem, its scary.
Listo, maybe a member of my family could be induced to visit your landlord and neighbours.
Has anyone else noticed that all the verb tenses are messed up in this post?
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