That pure Cane Spirit since 1848.

Monday, October 26, 2009





My Beautiful Fucking Mind.


In 1968, in our leafy little primary school, (no snotters, no rickets, no Irish) when we were nine years old, they introduced us to the problem of the overflowing bath in arithmetic.

It runs like this.

A forgetful man wishes to have a bath so he turns on both taps but forge
ts (because he is forgetful) to put the plug in and is suddenly called away to the telephone. While he is away, the water keeps pouring out the taps, filling the bath. The bath fills at 10 gallons a minute and drains out the plughole at 5 gallons a minute. If the bath holds 100 gallons of water, how long before the bath overflows?



It took me ten seconds to solve it even though I was watching out the window for Batman who was coming at 11am to talk to us about road safety. My poor little classmates however, were in a right tizzy. They were pissing their pants trying to work out the answer before that fucking bath overflowed. They were troubled by the phone call to the forgetful man. At the door were three bags of bottle tops for the blind. They were frightened that the water would get in the skirting boards and flood the electrics. Do they make metal eyes out them? Help! The bath water will soak everything to fuck and back in the whole fucking house!
As the minutes passed, they blamed themselves. Our paintings on the wall looked shit. The water kept on rising in the bath. Their little legs were wiggling in panic. God, they hated the forgetful man. Forgetful? He was a fucking spastic. Can’t he hear the bath running? Is he fucking deaf and dumb as well? T
hey couldn’t even phone him to tell him to turn the fucking taps off because he was ON the fucking phone and the line was busy and it might be a party line and anyway he shouldn’t be allowed to use the phone if he can’t run a fucking bath the stupid useless bastard, we hope he gets drowned, we will be blamed for the whole fucking mess when we got home.

It’s simple arithmetic so you maybe think I solved it by taking 5 from 10 and dividing 100 by the result, but you’d be wrong. This will become clear later. Meanwhile I watched out the window and put up my hand and said; “20 minutes.” Mrs Thompson turned over the page to check the answer and sniffed. I made her uneasy because I was always looking up her skirt at her knickers.

25 comments:

Barlinnie said...

Sweet mother of Christ... you had your own bath?

Too be honest, I had to change the circumstances of the equation. It just wouldn't compute with mere water and oul tin baths in front of the fire.

I swapped the liquid and container for pints of porter and straight Andy Capp glesses fae under the bar.

The answer is simple.

Padraig Mor, the 3:30, Lingfield.

Next!

Pat said...

I'm not going to bother my pretty little head with you sums becos I don't like to tempt fate and a zillion years ago Miss Fox - our maths teacher(on whom I had a crush)set us a problem:
'If a brick weighs 7 pounds and half a brick how much does a brick and a half weigh?
I had a blinding flash and shouted out the correct answer. My moment of glory - never to be repeated.

Pat said...

I couldn't resist and you'll tell me it's not 20.

Mrs Pouncer said...

Oh vair vair good, Maroon. I think you have hit your stride here. What happened next?

Dr Maroon said...

21 lbs shurely Pat, my pet lamb.
7lbs and half a brick equals a whole brick, so a brick weighs 14 lbs.
A brick and a half must weigh 21 lbs.

Bloody heavy bricks it must be said.And what of the straw? We cannot make bricks without straw.

Mr Bastard, NO! There are too many variables. How many pints until the irishman overflows is an entirely different problem, one we were introduced to in SOCIAL science much later. Your answer is correcthowever, and the bookie theme comes into the story later. Well done that boy. Take your hands out your pockets son.

Dr Maroon said...

Clarissa, oof! It gets much worse I am afraid.

very afraid.

Pat said...

Doccie : absolutely correct 21 it is. But you'd be amazed at the folk who don't get it.
My 20 was in answer to your water question. I'm guessing you were too kind to tell me it was wrang.

Dr Maroon said...

The next one was harder, (it's the nature of these things) it ran;

There is a waste overflow four fifths up the side of the bath which drains a further one and one half gallons per imperial minute from the bath. How long till the bath overflows now?

the class however took this news very badly. There were mutterings of "unfair" and "crikey" and "fucking hell" but it was prep for selection at twelve so they buckled down to it while Mrs Thompson read her Woman's Realm.

"22 mins 24 seconds!" I shouted out, "and here comes Batman!"
Yeeeeeeh! shouted the class.
Mrs Thompson wrote to my mother complaining I was a disruptive influence.
Batman spoke with a Glasgow accent and his costume was a bloody shocker.

Dr Maroon said...

Re your 20 Pat.
The answer is in the story.
Cheats never prosper.

xerxes said...

Effing hell Maroon, this kind of stuff is far too hard for King's, some of the fellows there can't even read. How can I be expected to manage your career if you keep blowing yourself up like this?

Daphne Wayne-Bough said...

We had a galvanised tin bath which was kept in the shed and brought out once a week to be put in the scullery and filled up from the Ascot. It was emptied by dragging it to the scullery door and tipping it up. That is why I am no good at sums.

Daphne Wayne-Bough said...

We had a galvanised tin bath which was kept in the shed and brought out once a week to be put in the scullery and filled up from the Ascot. It was emptied by dragging it to the scullery door and tipping it up. That is why I am no good at sums.

Dr Maroon said...

Many a true word Inky as you shall soon see.

Was there ever a baby thrown out with it Daphne? I am investigating such things. For example. money DOES make you happy and size IS everything or so Kim says.

Barlinnie said...

We was that poor we never had a scullery, let alone a scullery door.
To empty our rusty tin bath, the faither made us drink till our wee bellies were full, and then it was down 13 flights of cold stone stairs to the ground floor.

God help us if we spilt a mere drap.

Kevin Musgrove said...

The awful thing is that I knew the answer within your ten seconds, Maroon. I feel like I've cheated or something.

Dr Maroon said...

Well of course you did Kevin. You are a librariadon not a nine year old child worried about flood damage. The second part must have taken you longer because it's got fractions in it. (see comment above) Anyway, this will all become clear later when we get viscosity and orifice size and changing flow rates. We shall see how smart you are then, oh yes. Anyway, we shall have a tiny brandy to rid our throats of all this school dust.


Jimmy, we were so poor we had to keep the piano in our second scullery and help faither's valet doon the stair wi' the bath to the stank, the footman bein' too weak wi' the jaundice.

savannah said...

i lived in california, sugar! we had a pool. now, how does that figure into anything, y'all might ask? i haven't a clue. i'm in the wine country and i've been drinking ever since i landed. i'll raise a glass in y'all's honor mid-morning! xoxoxoxo

Dr Maroon said...

Sav honey, I've been in wine country since 1975.
Down the hatch!

xoxxoox

xerxes said...

Pat, I meant to say: the nicest girls have crushes on their maths teachers. [Excuse me Maroon, but I'm sure you endorse this.]

Pat said...

Yes but Jimmy and Daphne did your Dad wear clogs?

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