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Back issues and Irregular goodies can be found at http://www.gizmo1.demon.co.uk/li/

THE IRREGULAR ARCHIVE PROJECT

Here at Lamont Towers we are in the process of scanning all the print issues of The Lamont Times, The Lamont Times: The Next Publication and The Irregular for inclusion on a CD-ROM of the complete archive (together with various other files), and you might be able to help! Although archaeological excavation work in the junk room(s) is ongoing, we are still missing a few issues. If you have any of the following and would be able to lend them to us, we would be very grateful:

• The Lamont Times: #5
• Lamont's Irregular (AKA The Irregular): #12 (Thanks to Paul for locating copies of #10 and #11, and Old (minor) for finding #9!)

For the latest news on the project, and updates to the wanted list, check the progress page at

http://www.gizmo1.demon.co.uk/wip/archive/index.htm

 

TFIr ONLINE

You can also read TFIr in its enhanced online version, with links and graphics where appropriate. The latest online version will always be available at http://www.gizmo1.demon.co.uk/li/tfir/latest.htm - part of the Irregular site at http://www.gizmo1.demon.co.uk/li/

Who is the Editor? So far as we know there's no Malkovichian portal into his brain, but there is the recently-revised FAQ and the UndeadCam:.

FAQ: http://www.gizmo1.demon.co.uk/scblbiog/scblfaq.htm
Cam: http://www.gizmo1.demon.co.uk/undead

 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Friday 15 June		-		King John set his seal on the Magna Carta at Runnymede, 1215
Saturday 16 June		-		Stan Laurel, comedian, born in Ulverston, England, 1890
Sunday 17 June		-		Barry Manilow, singer/composer born, 1946
Monday 18 June		-		United States declared war against Britain, 1812
Tuesday 19 June		-		Kathleen Turner, actress, born in Springfield, MO,1954. Garfield the cat debuted, 1978
Wednesday 20 June		-		National Bald Eagle Day in the United States
Thursday 21 June		-		Inigo Jones, architect, died in London, 1652

I'll make it real simple. I'm a 36-C. In the game, she's a double-D. In the movie, she's a D. We split the difference ... (The movie Lara Croft) is much more athletic, and she has smaller breasts, but she's still Lara Croft, so there.

 

FILM QUIZ

This week's quotations all come from films featuring large animals. Answers next week or from the usual address.

• Ooh! Ahh! That's how it always starts. Then later there's running and screaming.
  
• - Well, Denham, the airplanes got him.
  - Oh no, it wasn't the airplanes. It was beauty killed the beast.
  
• Here in Tokyo, time has been turned back two million years.
• Imagine a giant cockroach, with unlimited strength, a massive inferiority complex, and a real short temper, is tear-assing around Manhattan in a brand-new Edgar suit. That sound like fun to you?
• Shoot a nuke down a bug hole, you got a lot of dead bugs.
  

Last week's political films were:

• Listen; I'm a politician, which means I'm a cheat and a liar, and when I'm not kissing babies I'm stealing their lollipops. But it also means I keep my options open.
  -- The Hunt For Red October
• Look, strange women lying on their backs in ponds handing over swords... that's no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
  -- Monty Python and the Holy Grail
• I'm just a retired investor with a pension. I came here to vote in the elections because they wouldn't give me an absentee ballot.
  -- The Godfather: Part II
• I want to say to Prime Minister MacDonald: Surrender her pronto, or we'll lever Toronto.
  -- Canadian Bacon
• There is no civility, only politics.
  -- Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace

WEIRD WORLD NEWS

Strange stories from around the world, some of which might be true...

After a disappointing hunt for the fabled Loch Ness Monster earlier this year, veteran Swedish monster hunter Jan Sundberg will next search Ireland's Lough Ree for the monster alleged to live in its depths.

Carl and Mary Willis of Wallsend, England are such devoted fans of the Australian soap opera Neighbours (shown weekdays on BBC1) that they named their son Harold Erinsborough Willis after one of the main characters and the fictitious Melbourne suburb in which the series is set. Their surname is already shared with a past family on the show.

Was Salieri innocent? Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's death at the age of 35 has popularly been put down to poisoning by the rival composer, but University of Washington researcher Jan Hirschmann has suggested that the reported symptoms, including fever and swollen limbs, together with a letter written by Mozart to his wife two months before his death in which the composer eagerly anticipated a meal of pork cutlets, pointed to trichinosis, a parasitic worm that invades the body through infected meat, which was unrecognised in Mozart's day.

A scratchcard promotion by the Ultramar Canada Ltd petrol retailer almost backfired after printers mistakenly produced not 3 but 100,000 coupons bearing C$1,500 instant prizes. Were it not for stipulations in the contest rules, the company would have been required to give away petrol worth almost its total annual earnings. It planned to hold a draw at the end of the promotion to pick three winners.

San Francisco actor/playwright Bob Ernst may be hoping his latest production doesn't go down the pan... the one-act hour-long play "The John" is set in a theatre toilet during the intermission of Shakespeare's "King Lear", where a middle-aged theatregoer encounters Death, and to get an authentic setting, Ernst is staging the play in the toilets of the city's Maritime Hall.

 

IRREGULAR WEBSITE OF THE WEEK

The Spark has come up with some truly strange "scientific" projects in the past - anyone who has seen the Fat, Stinky-Meat and Stinky-Meat 2 Projects or read the StinkyFeet Diaries will remember them with, well, probably revulsion... Their latest project is - we're happy to say - much less vile. For the Date-My-Sister Project Chris Rudder invited his sister to town purportedly to write a feature on Boston, but really to secretly set her up on dates with his friends then surveille them with hidden microphones and cameras. It takes a while to get through but the denouement is well worth waiting for.

http://www.thespark.com/science/sister/

THE AMAZING NOT-QUITE-RANDOM LOTTERY PREDICTOR!

Madame Jennifer, our in-house psychic predicts the following numbers will be lucky:

9, 11, 28, 30, 35, 45

 

THE LAVATORY OF OTRANTO

Chapter 9: Write Hard 2 - Write Harder

The Writer sat at his desk, twiddling the stylus from his graphics tablet in his fingers and staring blankly at his computer monitor, which was displaying Edward Hopper's painting "Nighthawks." He had writers' block, and he had it bad. He stretched and got up, deciding that a shower and a glass of iced orange juice would help. Walking to the door he put his hand on the handle and pushed. It was locked. Puzzled, he returned to his desk and pulled up the story plan. Everything after chapter 8 was scrambled. Opening the top right-hand drawer he saw that the back-up disc was missing. Someone had carefully planned this.

Edmund found himself in a narrow passageway, obviously a servants' corridor as it was reasonably well-lit and the floor was scuffed from years of use. He headed along the wall beside the library until he came to a narrow doorway. Opening it he found a dark wooden staircase spiralling upwards. One floor up another door stood closed. Listening at it he heard the muffled voice of the Phantom - this must be the back way onto the library balcony, he thought.

He slowly pushed the door open and found himself in another, shorter passage, facing a second door. The Phantom's voice was clearer now. Edmund eased the door open and saw the back of the black cloaked figure standing just a few feet in front of him. "I could just push him over the balcony," he thought, easing the door further open and sliding sideways through the gap. He could see the people at the far end of the room - his brother and sisters, Super Squirrel and the Lion, and hoped that they would not give away his presence. Susan and Lucy were whispering to each other - Edmund could not tell if they had seen him. Bimbo Bunny was winking and batting her eyelids at Peter, Super Squirrel was busy heroically rubbing her nose and staring at the floor in a valiant fashion, while the Lion seemed to be taking notes on a handheld computer and patting a large rucksack that was leaning against his leg. Perhaps, Edmund thought, he was checking his inventory of old computers.

Realising that he probably had very little time, Edmund jumped forwards and pushed the cloaked figure with all his might. It balanced for a moment on the balcony before toppling over, hitting the floor below with a loud thud. Everyone looked up at Edmund, and - led by Peter - burst into spontaneous applause. Edmund climbed down the metal spiral stairs at the far end of the balcony and pressed his way through the crowd that had surrounded the unmoving body of the Phantom. It was lying face down, arms and legs twisted inhumanly. Edmund turned the Phantom over and gasped. Half of its face was torn off, revealing electronic circuitry across which dim lights flashed.

"It's an android!" the Lion exclaimed, "If we can find an interface socket I may be able to run some diagnostics and find out where it came from!" He proceeded to search the android for a suitable socket, eventually finding a 9-pin serial socket embedded in the left nostril. "I think I have a cable to fit that," he said, emptying out the contents of the rucksack to reveal a laptop PC, several old computers, a canoe paddle and a mess of cables. He pushed the end of one cable into the nose socket of the robot and connected the other end to the laptop.

"Humph," he grumbled, "Doors'95 can't find the port. I'll have to reboot into Lunix."

A few minutes later he declared that he had accessed the android's memory. "Here we go," he said, "It's a Type 42 Cybernetics RoboClone with DNA enhancements, indistinguishable in normal use, even down to blood samples."

"So the Phantom was a robot?" Lucy asked.

The library doors were flung open with a loud bang. "Not quite," sneered a familiar voice. Everyone looked round, and saw the Phantom standing in the doorway, one hand on the shoulder of his dreaded - if somewhat shorter - clone, Mini-P, who was grinning evilly.

"I knew one of you kids might try something," the Phantom said, "So I sent an android in first. Mini-P, hand out the new plots."

The little Phantom passed around pamphlets, printed on green paper. Everyone stared at them in disbelief. Bimbo Bunny finished reading hers and fainted.

To be continued...

AND FINALLY...

Ten words that don't exist but should.

• AQUADEXTROUS (ak wa deks' trus) adj. Possessing the ability to turn the bathroom faucet on and off with your toes.
• CARPERPETUATION (kar' pur pet u a shun) n. The act, when vacuuming, of running over a string or a piece of lint at least a dozen times, reaching over and picking it up, examining it, then putting it back down to give the vacuum one more chance.
  
• DISCONFECT (dis kon fekt') v. To sterilize the piece of candy you dropped on the floor by blowing on it, assuming this will somehow 'remove' all the germs.
  
• ELBONICS (el bon' iks) n. The actions of two people manoeuvring for one armrest in a movie theatre or on an airplane.
  
• FRUST (frust) n. The small line of debris that refuses to be swept onto the dustpan and keep backing a person across the room until he finally decides to give up in frustration and sweeps it under the rug.
  
• LACTOMANGULATION (lak' to man guy lay' shun) n. Manhandling the "open here" spout on a milk container so badly that one has to resort to the 'illegal' side.
  
• PEPPIER (pehp ee ay') n. The waiter at a fancy restaurant whose sole purpose seems to be walking around asking diners if they want ground pepper.
  
• PHONESIA (fo nee' zhuh) n. The affliction of dialing a phone number and forgetting whom you were calling just as they answer.
  
• PUPKUS (pup'kus) n. The moist residue left on a window after a dog presses its nose to it.
  
• TELECRASTINATION (tel e kras tin ay' shun) n. The act of always letting the phone ring at least twice before you pick it up, even when you're only six inches away.