[89] in Humor
Christmas Presents...
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (brndlfly@MIT.EDU)
Fri Feb 18 17:30:09 1994
From: brndlfly@MIT.EDU
To: humor@MIT.EDU
Cc: tavenner@MIT.EDU, testarne@MIT.EDU, btmarsha@MIT.EDU, lancelot@MIT.EDU
Date: Fri, 18 Feb 94 17:26:56 EST
From a recent edition of New Scientist:
With great pleasure, we present the results of the Feedback Christmas
competition. Readers were asked to suggest ideal Christmas presents for
famous individuals. The response was overwhelming, with over 400 entries of
the usual high standard, so thank you everybody for all your witty and
entertaining suggestions.
Morphic resonance was in operation this year as never before, with
something like one hundred ideas appearing more than once. Archimedes, for
example, was positively showered with presents to aid his ablutions, such as
towels, bottles of bubble bath, bath salts, rubber ducks and jacuzzis. Albert
Einstein also did well. He was offered at least a dozen sets of dice, numerous
adjustable traveling clocks (sometimes without hands), combs, vouchers for
hairstylists, visits by relatives, and several subscriptions to New Scientist.
Another person who was given clocks of various kinds was Stephen
Hawking, who also received mints with holes, and more than one Tardis. Isaac
Newton, meanwhile, was offered various types of protective headgear, several
Apple computers and a couple of cider presses, while another popular recipient
of gifts was Leonardo da Vinci, who was offered model aircraft kits, flying
lessons, trips in the Concorde, a CAD program and the address of a good patent
lawyer.
Famous travelers from the past and present, such as Odysseus, Marco
Polo, Christopher Columbus, Ferdinand Magellan, Captain Cook, David Livingstone
Amelia Earhart and Margaret Thatcher, were offered the benefits of modern
knowledge like atlases and globes, links to global positioning systems and
jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days.
Inevitably, several readers wanted to give Erwin Schrodinger a cat
flap, while two wanted to give him a plain-wrapped box labelled "Guess?" in one
case and "No peeking till Xmas" in the other. Another recipient of several
mystery presents was Werner Heisenberg.
Other ideas that appeared more than once included, in no particular
order: electric razors and aftershave lotion for William of Ockham; sprinklers
and smoke alarms for the baker in Pudding Lane; Mechano sets and contracts to
build the Channel Tunnel for Isambard Kingdom Brunel; Stain Devils, biological
washing powder and Swarfega for Lady Macbeth; Semtex for Guy Fawkes; bunjee
jump vouchers for Robert Hooke; superglue and Araldite (with instruction
leaflets in linear B) for Icarus; horses, Range Rovers, motorbikes and trail
bikes for King Richard III; bottles of disinfectant, washing machines and air
conditioning units for Alexander Fleming; bigger notebooks for Pierre de Fermat
and nicotine patches for Sir Walter Raleigh.
Much as we enjoyed these ideas, we decided not to include any repeats
amongst the winners. We also disallowed ghastly puns (truncheon vouchers for
Sir Robert Peel, a pair of Levis for Charles Darwin so he could learn about
jeans) and a nice try from the entrant (a retired social worker) who suggested
"a small consignment of single malt whiskies for an unknown retired social
worker".
Which finally brings us to the winning ideas, which were simply the
ones we enjoyed the most and felt were most original. Thanks to the generosity
of our sponsors, there are 25 winners rather than the 20 we promised. Here they are:
For the Trjoans: an airport luggage scanner.
For Hercules: a JCB.
For Perseus: mirrored sunglasses.
For Niccolo Machiavelli: The Downing Street Years by Margaret Thatcher.
For Bishop James Usher: a piece of fossilised wood containing a tree
ring dated at 4005 B.C.
For Bishop George Berkeley: a virtual reality outfit.
For Robert Burns: a word processor with spell checker.
For Jules Verne: a surplus-to-requirement Trident submarine.
For the ancient mariner: a solar still.
For Louis Pasteur: a dozen tins of Scotch broth.
For Charles Darwin: a guided tour to the monastery garden at Brno,
led by Gregor Mendel.
For Gregor Mendel: The Double Helix by James Watson and Francis Crick.
For Watson and Crick: a reunion dinner starting with escargot
(Helix helix).
For Rosalind Franklin: recognition.
For Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler: the biggest Cray computer ever,
and a pocket calculator each.
For Gaspard Coriolis: a left-handed corkscrew.
For the Xerox R&D team: a very large waste paper basket.
For Albert Einstein: a train set.
For Erwin Schrodinger: a puppy; for Ivan Pavlov: a kitten.
For Werner Heisenberg: a tie; no... socks; no... aftershave; no...
For John Bell: a pair of nonlocally correlated socks.
For William Waldegrave: foresight - and hindsight.
For Otzi: a bar of Kendal mint cake.
For the Cerne Abbas Giant: a bottle of Valium.
For Feedback: a microphone that always points to the speakers.
