accustom myself, based as they must be on new discoveries or a passion for outlandish design. Now, for example, it was deemed appropriate to install a kind of elaborate washing galley for guests in place of a bathroom. There was no longer a bathtub, but the shower – a glass cabin – was more or less housed in the room itself. For several weeks I took this to be asign of the modesty, nay, squalor of my billet, until I learned that in contemporary architecture circles these sorts of things are regarded as creative and remarkably progressive. Likewise, it was another coincidence which alerted me to the television set.
As I had forgotten to hang the DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door to my room, a cleaner entered just as I was attending to my moustache in the washing galley. I turned around in surprise, she apologised, promising to return later and, as she was leaving, she caught sight of the apparatus my shirt was hanging in front of.
“Is there something wrong with the telly?” she asked, and before I could reply she picked up a small box and turned on the device. An image appeared at once, which changed each time she pressed the buttons on the box.
“No, it’s working,” she said, satisfied. “I just thought …”
Then she went, leaving me full of curiosity.
Carefully I took the shirt from the screen, then reached for the little box.
So this was a modern-day television set. It was black, with no switches or knobs, nothing. Holding the box in my left hand I pressed button number one, and the apparatus started up. The result was disappointing.
The picture was of a chef, finely chopping vegetables. Unbelievable! Having developed such an advanced piece of technology, all they could feature on it was a ridiculous cook! Admittedly, the Olympic Games could not take place every year, nor at every hour of the day, but surely something of greater import must be happening somewhere in Germany, or even in the world! Shortly afterwards a woman joined the manand provided an admiring commentary on his knife skills. My jaw dropped. Providence had presented the German Volk with this wonderful, magnificent opportunity for propaganda, and it was being squandered on the production of leek rings. I was so furious that I could have hurled the entire apparatus out of the window, but then it occurred to me that there were many more buttons on the little box besides the simple on/off one. So I pressed number two. The chef vanished at once, only to be replaced by another chef, who was grandiosely discussing the differences between two varieties of turnip. This one had a floozy standing next to him too, who marvelled at the pearls of wisdom that fell from the lips of this “Turnip Head”. In irritation I pressed number three. I had not imagined the modern world would be like this.
Turnip Head disappeared in favour of a thickset woman who was also standing by a stove. Here, by contrast, the preparation of food was peripheral to the scene, nor did the woman announce what was on the day’s menu. Instead she complained that she had far too little money. This at least was good news for a politician; the social question had not been resolved in the past sixty-six years. Might one have expected anything better from those democratic windbags?
I found it astonishing, however, that the television should afford this trout such prominence; compared to a 100 metres final, the performance of the hefty whiner was terrifically uneventful. On the other hand I was grateful to be watching a transmission where nobody was fussing over the cuisine, least of all the fat woman herself. Her concern was for a scruffy young character, who now slouched up to her, mutteredsomething that sounded like “grmmmshl”, and was introduced by a narrator as Manndi. Manndi, he explained, was the obese woman’s daughter, and she had just lost her apprenticeship. As I sat there, wondering how anybody could have possibly given this Manndi an apprenticeship in the first
As I had forgotten to hang the DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door to my room, a cleaner entered just as I was attending to my moustache in the washing galley. I turned around in surprise, she apologised, promising to return later and, as she was leaving, she caught sight of the apparatus my shirt was hanging in front of.
“Is there something wrong with the telly?” she asked, and before I could reply she picked up a small box and turned on the device. An image appeared at once, which changed each time she pressed the buttons on the box.
“No, it’s working,” she said, satisfied. “I just thought …”
Then she went, leaving me full of curiosity.
Carefully I took the shirt from the screen, then reached for the little box.
So this was a modern-day television set. It was black, with no switches or knobs, nothing. Holding the box in my left hand I pressed button number one, and the apparatus started up. The result was disappointing.
The picture was of a chef, finely chopping vegetables. Unbelievable! Having developed such an advanced piece of technology, all they could feature on it was a ridiculous cook! Admittedly, the Olympic Games could not take place every year, nor at every hour of the day, but surely something of greater import must be happening somewhere in Germany, or even in the world! Shortly afterwards a woman joined the manand provided an admiring commentary on his knife skills. My jaw dropped. Providence had presented the German Volk with this wonderful, magnificent opportunity for propaganda, and it was being squandered on the production of leek rings. I was so furious that I could have hurled the entire apparatus out of the window, but then it occurred to me that there were many more buttons on the little box besides the simple on/off one. So I pressed number two. The chef vanished at once, only to be replaced by another chef, who was grandiosely discussing the differences between two varieties of turnip. This one had a floozy standing next to him too, who marvelled at the pearls of wisdom that fell from the lips of this “Turnip Head”. In irritation I pressed number three. I had not imagined the modern world would be like this.
Turnip Head disappeared in favour of a thickset woman who was also standing by a stove. Here, by contrast, the preparation of food was peripheral to the scene, nor did the woman announce what was on the day’s menu. Instead she complained that she had far too little money. This at least was good news for a politician; the social question had not been resolved in the past sixty-six years. Might one have expected anything better from those democratic windbags?
I found it astonishing, however, that the television should afford this trout such prominence; compared to a 100 metres final, the performance of the hefty whiner was terrifically uneventful. On the other hand I was grateful to be watching a transmission where nobody was fussing over the cuisine, least of all the fat woman herself. Her concern was for a scruffy young character, who now slouched up to her, mutteredsomething that sounded like “grmmmshl”, and was introduced by a narrator as Manndi. Manndi, he explained, was the obese woman’s daughter, and she had just lost her apprenticeship. As I sat there, wondering how anybody could have possibly given this Manndi an apprenticeship in the first
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