Zine 5 Edition
Collated by Bill Hillman
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
That idiot was reading over my shoulder while I wrote the
report sent to you earlier today. Kindly read only the odd
numbered lines (1, 3, 5, ...) for my true assessment of
him.
PROBLEMS WITH THE ENGLISH
A sign posted in Germany's Black Forest: It is strictly forbidden on our black forest camping site that people of different sex, for instance, men and women, live together in one tent unless they are married with each other for that purpose.
In a Zurich hotel: Because of the impropriety of entertaining guests
of the opposite sex in the bedroom, it is
suggested that the lobby be used for this purpose.
In an advertisement by a Hong Kong dentist: Teeth extracted by the latest Methodist.
A translated sentence from a Russian chess book: A lot of water has
been passed under the bridge since this
variation has been played.
In a Rome laudry: Ladies, leave your clothes here and spend the afternoon having a good time.
In a Czechoslovakian tourist agency: Take one of our horse-driven city tours-we guarantee no miscarriages.
Advertisement for donkey rides in Thailand: Would you like to ride on your own ass?
On the tap in a Finnish washroom: To stop the drip, turn cock to right.
In the window of a Swedish furrier: Fur coats made for ladies from their own skin.
On the box of a clockwork toy made in Hong Kong: Guaranted to work throughout its useful life.
Detour sign in Kyushi, Japan: Stop: Drive Sideways.
In a Swiss mountain inn: Special today-no ice cream.
In a Bangkok temple: It is forbidden to enter a woman even foreigner if dressed as a man.
In a Tokyo bar: Special cocktails for the ladies with nuts.
In a Copenhagen airline ticket office: We take your bags and send them in all directions.
On the door of a Moscow hotel room: If this is your first visit to USSR, you are welcome to it.
In a Norwegian cocktail lounge: Ladies are requested not to have children in the bar.
At a Budapest zoo: Please do not feed animals.If you have any suitable food, give it to the guard on duty.
In the office of a Roman doctor: Specialist in women and other diseases.
In a Tokyo hotel: Is forbidden to steal hotel towel please. If you are not person to do such thing is please not to read this notice.
In another Japanese hotel room: Please to bathe inside the tub.
In a Bucharest hotel lobby: The lift is being fixed for the next day. During that time we regret that you will be unbearable.
In a Leipzig elevator: Do not enter backwards, and only when lit up.
In a Belgrade hotel elevator: To move the cabin, push button for wishing floor. If the cabin should enter more persons, each one should press a number of wishing floor. Driving is then going alphabetically by national order.
In a Paris hotel elevator: Please leave your values at the front desk.
In a hotel in Athens: Visitors are expected to complain at the office between the hours of 9 and 11 A.M. daily.
In a Yugoslavian hotel: The flattening of underwear with pleasure is the job of the chambermaid.
In a Japanese hotel: You are invited to take advantage of the chambermaid.
In the lobby of a Moscow hotel across from a Russian Orthodox monastery:
You are welcome to visit the
cemetery where famous Russian and Soviet composers, artists, and
writers are buried daily except Thursday.
Similarly, from the Soviet Weekly: There will be a Moscow Exhibition
of Arts by 15,000 Soviet Republic
painters and sculptors. These were executed over the past two years.
In an Austrian hotel catering to skiers: Not to perambulate the corridors in the hours of repose in the boots of ascension.
On the menu of a Swiss restaurant: Our wines leave you nothing to hope for.
In the menu of a Polish hotel: Salad a firm's own make; limpid red beet soup with cheesy dumplings in the form of a finger; roasted duck let loose; beef rashers beaten up the country people's fashion.
In a Hong Kong supermarket: For your convenience, we recommend courteous, efficient self-service.
Outside a Hong Kong tailor shop: Ladies may have a fit upstairs.
In a Rhodes tailor shop: Order your summers suit. Because is big rush we will execute customers in strict rotation.
In an East African newspaper: A new swimming pool is rapidly taking shape since the contractors have thrown in the bulk of their workers.
In a Bangkok dry cleaner's: Drop your trousers here for best results.
Outside a Paris dress shop: Dresses for street walking.
In an Acapulco hotel: The manager has personally passed all the water served here.
In a Tokyo shop: Our nylons cost more than common, but you'll find they are best in the long run.
From a Japanese information booklet about using a hotel air conditioner: Cooles and Heates: If you want just condition of warm in your room, please control yourself.
From a brochure of a car rental firm in Tokyo: When passenger of
foot heave in sight, tootle the horn. Trumpet him melodiously at first,
but if he still obstacles your passage then tootle him with vigor.
The European Commission has announced an
agreement whereby English will be the official language of the EU, rather
than German, which was the other contender. It was conceded by the other
EU nations that English spelling had room for improvement and by consensus
a five-year plan for the phasing in of "Euro-English" has been accepted.
In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make sivil servants jump for joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of the "k", which should klear up some konfusion and allow one key less on keyboards.
There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f", making words like "fotograf" 20% shorter.
In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of the silent "e" is disgrasful.
By the fourth yer, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v".
During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters. After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubls or difikultis and everivun vil find it ezi to understand ech ozer. ZE DREM VIL FINALI COM TRU !
Herr Schmidt
Buxton, N.C. A man died on a beach when an 8-foot-deep hole he had dug into the sand caved in as he sat inside it. Beachgoers said Daniel Jones, 21, dug the hole for fun, or protection from the wind, and had been sitting in a beach chair at the bottom Thursday afternoon when it collapsed, burying him beneath 5 feet of sand. People on the beach on the Outer Banks used their hands and shovels, trying to claw their way to Jones, a resident of Woodbridge, V.A., but could not reach him. It took rescue workers using heavy equipment almost an hour to free him while about 200 people looked on. Jones was pronounced dead at a hospital. "You just wouldn't believe the outpouring of concern, people digging with their hands, using pails from kids," Dare County Sheriff Bert Austin said.
In February, Santiago Alvarado, 24, was killed in Lompoc, Calif., he fell face-first through the ceiling of a bicycle shop he was burglarizing. Death was caused when the large flashlight he had placed in his mouth (to keep his hands free) crammed against the base of his skull as he hit the floor.
According to police in Dahlonega, G.A., ROTC cadet Nick Berrena, 20, was stabbed to death in January by fellow cadet Jeffrey Hoffman, 23, who was trying to prove that a knife could not penetrate the flak vest Berrena was wearing.
Sylvester Briddell, Jr., 26, was killed in February in Selbyville, Del., as he won a bet with friends who said he would not put a revolver loaded with four bullets into his mouth and pull the trigger.
In February, according to police in Windsor, Ont., Daniel Kolta, 27, and Randy Taylor, 33, died in a head-on collision, thus earning a tie in the game of chicken they were playing with their snowmobiles.
In October, a 49-year-old San Francisco stockbroker, who "totally zoned when he ran," according to his wife, accidentally jogged off a 200-foot-high cliff on his daily run.
In September in Detroit, a 41-year-old man got stuck and drowned in two feet of water after squeezing headfirst through an 18-inch-wide sewer grate to retrieve his car keys.
In September, a 7-year- old boy fell off a 100-foot-high bluff near Ozark, Ark., after he lost his grip swinging on a cross that marked the spot where another person had fallen to his death in 1990.
Overzealous zookeeper Friedrich Riesfeldt fed his constipated elephant
Stefan 22 doses of animal laxative and more than a bushel of berries, figs
and prunes before the plugged-up pachyderm finally let fly-and suffocated
the keeper under 200 pounds of poop. Investigators say ill-fated Friedrich,
46, was attempting to give the ailing elephant an olive-oil enema when
the relieved beast unloaded on him like a dump truck full of mud. "The
sheer force of the elephant's unexpected defecation knocked Mr. Riesfeldt
to the ground, where he struck his head on a rock and lay unconscious as
the elephant continued to evacuate his bowels on top of him," said flabbergasted
Paderborn police detective Erik Dern. "With no one there to help him, he
lay under all that dung for at least an hour before a watchman came along,
and during that time he suffocated.
"It seems to be just one of those freak accidents that happen sometimes
--- a billion-to-one shot, at least."
In Guthrie, Okla., in October, Jason Heck tried to kill a millipede with a shot from his .22-caliber rifle, but the bullet ricocheted off a rock near the hole and hit pal Antonio Martinez in the head, fracturing his skull.
In Elyria, Ohio, in October, Martyn Eskins, attempting to clean out cobwebs in his basement, declined to use a broom in favor of a propane torch and caused a fire that burned the first and second floors of his house.
Paul Stiller, 47, was hospitalized in Andover Township, N. J., in
September, and his wife Bonnie was also injured, by a quarter-stick of
dynamite that blew up in their car. While driving around at 2 am, the bored
couple lit the dynamite and tried to toss it out the window to see what
would happen, but they apparently failed to notice that the window was
unopened.
The Princess of Amen-Ra lived some 1,500
yrs before Christ. When she died, she was laid in an ornate wooden coffin
and buried deep in a vault at Luxor, on the banks of the Nile.
In the late 1890s, 4 rich young Englishmen visiting the excavations at Luxor were invited to buy an exquisitely fashioned mummy case containing the remains of Princess of Amen-Ra. They drew lots. The man who won paid several thousand pounds and had the coffin taken to his hotel. A few hours later, he was seen walking out towards the desert. He never returned. The next day, one of the remaining 3 men was shot by an Egyptian servant accidentally. His arm was so severely wounded it had to be amputated. The 3rd man in the foursome found on his return home that the bank holding his entire savings had failed. The 4th guy suffered a severe illness, lost his job and was reduced to selling matches in the street.
Nevertheless, the coffin reached England (causing other misfortunes along the way), where it was bought by a London businessman. After 3 of his family members had been injured in a road accident and his house damaged by fire, the businessman donated it to the British Museum. As the coffin was being unloaded from a truck in the museum courtyard, the truck suddenly went into reverse and trapped a passer-by. Then as the casket was being lifted up thestairs by 2 workmen, 1 fell and broke his leg. The other, apparently in perfect health, died unaccountably two days later.
Once the Princess was installed in the Egyptian Room, the trouble
really started. Museum's night watchmen
frequently heard frantic hammering and sobbing from the coffin.
Other exhibits in the room were also often hurled about at night. One watchman
died on duty, causing the other watchmen to quit. Cleaners refused to go
near the Princess too. When a visitor derisively flicked a dust cloth at
the face painted on the coffin, his child died of measles soon afterwards.
Finally, the authorities had the mummy carried down to the basement, figuring
it could not do any harm down there. Within a week, one of the helpers
was seriously ill, and the supervisor of the move was found dead at his
desk.
By now, the papers had heard of it. A journalist photographer took
a picture of the mummy case and when he developed it, the painting on the
coffin was of a horrifying, human face. The photographer was said to have
gone home then, locked his bedroom door and shot himself. Soon afterwards,
the museum sold the mummy to a private collector. After continual misfortune
(and deaths), the owner banished it to the attic. A well known authority
on the occult, Madame Helena Blavatsky, visited the premises. Upon entry,
she was seized with a shivering fit and searched the house for the source
of "an evil influence of incredible intensity". She finally came to the
attic and found the mummy case. "Can you exorcise this evil spirit?" asked
the owner. "There is no such thing as exorcism. Evil remains evil forever.
Nothing can be done about it. I implore you to get rid of this evil as
soon as possible." But no British museum would take the mummy. The fact
that almost 20 people had met with misfortune, disaster or death from handling
the casket in barely 10 yrs, was now well known. Eventually, a hard-headed
American archaeologist (who dismissed the happenings as quirks of circumstance),
paid a handsome price for the mummy and arranged for
its removal to New York.
In April 1912, the new owner escorted his treasure aboard a sparkling, new White Star liner about to make it maiden voyage to New York. On the night of April 14, amid scenes of unprecedented horror, the Princess of Amen-Ra accompanied 1,500 passengers to their deaths at the bottom of the Atlantic.
The name of the ship was. . .
