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Authors: Robert Rankin
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yonder on the area of
linoleum that caught the afternoon sun, tapping his bare toes to the beat and
picking the scabs from his knees.
And
eating them.
A
question had entered my head, most probably through the bald patch on the top
where the ring worm nested, and I was eager to pass the question on to my
brother.
I
waited patiently for the opportunity and this came shortly after the sixth
playing of the record’s A side, when brother Andy got up to fetch some rose hip
syrup to wash down the last of his scabs.
‘Brother
Andy,’ I called from the damp and darkness, ‘tell me, pray, how that thing
works.’
‘How
what thing works, young Dog’s Breath?’ he replied, for this was his
affectionate ‘pet name’ for me.
‘The
stereo system, oh Great One.’ For this was the name he had chosen for himself.
‘It has
an electrical motor,’ he said informatively.
‘No. I
understand that.’ I didn’t. ‘I mean the music. The music comes off the
record and goes out of the speakers, doesn’t it?’
‘It
certainly does.’
‘So how
come there’s any music left on the record to play a second time? Wouldn’t it
all have come off and gone out of the speakers?’
‘Good
point, DB,’ said the Great One. And then he went on to explain. ‘You see, in
the old days that’s exactly what happened. At the music factory where the
record was made they put the music on in layers, like paint. But old-fashioned
gramophones just had this needle connected to a horn for the music to come out
of and the needle scratched the music off layer by layer until none was left.
If you play an old 78 on a modern record player, all you’ll hear is crackles,
because most of the music has been scraped off.’
Impressed
so far? I certainly was, and there was more to come.
‘Now,’
said he, beckoning me from the damp and darkness of my birthday treat, ‘you
will notice that great progress has been made since those bad old days. Behold,
if you will, this cable that runs from the record deck here, to the left
speaker, there.’
I
beheld this.
‘Behold
that it is a double cable. There are two separate wires inside.’
I
beheld this also.
‘The
reason there are two is as follows. The music travels from the
gramophone needle, along one of these wires and comes out of the speaker
for us to hear. But and this is a big but, there is the second
wire. Attached to the end of this second wire and inside the speaker itself
there is a microphone. This picks up the music coming out of the speaker and
carries it back to the stylus (which is the modern name for the needle) and
right back onto the record again. It’s clever, isn’t it?’
And I
had to admit that it was.
I would
later discover that brother Andy had not been altogether honest with me in
regard to this matter and so when it became necessary for me to kill and eat
him, I did so without hesitation or regret. [13]
If there was ever proof
needed for the existence of the Alpha Man, then that proof came in the shape of
my brother. He was certainly an innovative inventor, but time and again his
innovative inventions were callously poached away and perverted to the profit
of other lesser men.
I will
offer just two examples of this, although the list is endless. [14] My brother’s favourite number
was 300. Because if you turn 300 on its side it looks a bit like a bum pooing.
Hence every innovative invention he came up with was inevitably one in the 300
Series. One of his earliest, and to my mind still one of his finest, was
the
RANKIN
300 SERIES PATENT
SMOKE-EEZEE
PERSONAL
LEISURE
FACILITY
Allow
me to explain, by asking you this: how many times have you been doing something
tricky, where a cigarette would really help with the concentration, but smoking
the cigarette only makes the job more difficult?
My
brother came up with the smoke-eezee. It was a metal harness that hung about
the neck with a clip on the front at mouth level to hold your cigarette, and a
small bowl
linoleum that caught the afternoon sun, tapping his bare toes to the beat and
picking the scabs from his knees.
And
eating them.
A
question had entered my head, most probably through the bald patch on the top
where the ring worm nested, and I was eager to pass the question on to my
brother.
I
waited patiently for the opportunity and this came shortly after the sixth
playing of the record’s A side, when brother Andy got up to fetch some rose hip
syrup to wash down the last of his scabs.
‘Brother
Andy,’ I called from the damp and darkness, ‘tell me, pray, how that thing
works.’
‘How
what thing works, young Dog’s Breath?’ he replied, for this was his
affectionate ‘pet name’ for me.
‘The
stereo system, oh Great One.’ For this was the name he had chosen for himself.
‘It has
an electrical motor,’ he said informatively.
‘No. I
understand that.’ I didn’t. ‘I mean the music. The music comes off the
record and goes out of the speakers, doesn’t it?’
‘It
certainly does.’
‘So how
come there’s any music left on the record to play a second time? Wouldn’t it
all have come off and gone out of the speakers?’
‘Good
point, DB,’ said the Great One. And then he went on to explain. ‘You see, in
the old days that’s exactly what happened. At the music factory where the
record was made they put the music on in layers, like paint. But old-fashioned
gramophones just had this needle connected to a horn for the music to come out
of and the needle scratched the music off layer by layer until none was left.
If you play an old 78 on a modern record player, all you’ll hear is crackles,
because most of the music has been scraped off.’
Impressed
so far? I certainly was, and there was more to come.
‘Now,’
said he, beckoning me from the damp and darkness of my birthday treat, ‘you
will notice that great progress has been made since those bad old days. Behold,
if you will, this cable that runs from the record deck here, to the left
speaker, there.’
I
beheld this.
‘Behold
that it is a double cable. There are two separate wires inside.’
I
beheld this also.
‘The
reason there are two is as follows. The music travels from the
gramophone needle, along one of these wires and comes out of the speaker
for us to hear. But and this is a big but, there is the second
wire. Attached to the end of this second wire and inside the speaker itself
there is a microphone. This picks up the music coming out of the speaker and
carries it back to the stylus (which is the modern name for the needle) and
right back onto the record again. It’s clever, isn’t it?’
And I
had to admit that it was.
I would
later discover that brother Andy had not been altogether honest with me in
regard to this matter and so when it became necessary for me to kill and eat
him, I did so without hesitation or regret. [13]
If there was ever proof
needed for the existence of the Alpha Man, then that proof came in the shape of
my brother. He was certainly an innovative inventor, but time and again his
innovative inventions were callously poached away and perverted to the profit
of other lesser men.
I will
offer just two examples of this, although the list is endless. [14] My brother’s favourite number
was 300. Because if you turn 300 on its side it looks a bit like a bum pooing.
Hence every innovative invention he came up with was inevitably one in the 300
Series. One of his earliest, and to my mind still one of his finest, was
the
RANKIN
300 SERIES PATENT
SMOKE-EEZEE
PERSONAL
LEISURE
FACILITY
Allow
me to explain, by asking you this: how many times have you been doing something
tricky, where a cigarette would really help with the concentration, but smoking
the cigarette only makes the job more difficult?
My
brother came up with the smoke-eezee. It was a metal harness that hung about
the neck with a clip on the front at mouth level to hold your cigarette, and a
small bowl
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