*Dialouge* of the Week

(Calling Scottish Water)

Mr B: Good morning. I recently moved to the area and would like to register my details.

Operator: You...sorry?

Mr B: Umm...I recently moved to the area. Do I need to register my details for billing purposes?

Operator: Ach, naw. Not in Scotland. It's all covered in your council tax: water and sewage.

Mr B: Ah right. Great.

Interesting cultural difference inasmuch as water company registration can be considered cultural. I did wonder why the council tax was so high and why water treatment was listed in the bill.

Dream of the Week

I had an invention. It's like that Simpsons episode where Homer is dreaming about an invention that's made him a fortune and he keeps trying to see the invention.

But here I actually did see the invention. It was a set of whistles. They weren't shaped like a traditional whistle. They were just different shaped loops and came in different colours. It didn't seem like they would function but you'd just blow throught the centre of these loops and magically a sound would be made.

But that's not the innovation. These whistles were created to make communication faster. The idea was that different whistles made different sounds and each sound corresponded to a particular phrase.

So for instance, the whistle that I tried was used when you wanted somebody to cook you a steak. Instead of saying, "cook me a steak", you'd just blow the whistle and the person would get the message to cook you a steak.

So it's me and some woman and we're testing it out on another woman. It's like a product demonstration. I blow the whistle at this woman and it just sounds like a normal whistle. So I find this comical and start laughing. "This is ridiculous. It just sounds like a normal whistle. And now this woman is supposed to cook me a steak?". Then we all start laughing at the absurdity of the product.

Should I put my computer away? No, I'll do it tomorrow. There's time.