AND ANOTHER THINGÖ
ASUNCION, Paraguay Aug. 3, 2004 - The death toll from a supermarket blaze soared by more than 100 to reach 464 Tuesday, as a security guard told investigators he was ordered to lock the building's doors to prevent theft just after the fire began. Thus ran the ABC news leader on the store fire in Asuncion. So hundreds died in order to preserve stock control. Well, let's hope that not too much stuff went up in the blaze. Now that would have been a pisser...
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I had a sobering get-a-life moment on the stairs earlier today. Emma had taken the kids out in the double-buggy (the Urban Tracker Travel System, the first authentic off-road perambulator. Donít get me startedÖ) & I had all the time I needed to vacuum through the flat. Iíd fired up the Dyson DC 04 & roared through the three bedrooms, the living room, the kitchen (donít you vacuum your kitchen floor?) & the bathroom & I paused on the landing to draw breath. The transparent cylinder ñ the very engine room, the cerebral cortex, of James Dysonís groundbreaking bagless vacuum cleaner ñ was already half full but the appliance was still motoring away like a Ferrari. So I hit the stairs, starting in the carpeted space by the front door & then heading back up each stair singly, using the reversible wand on its flexible serpentine telescopic extension to give the risers a thorough sucking. I reached the turn in the stairs & replaced the reversible wand in order to return action to the floor tool with its dynamic brush bar.
And then it happened. Without warning, I was suffused with ineffable warmth, a sense of absolute well-being as I manoeuvred the DC 04 forward & back on its independent floating castors. This was the perfect union of man & machine, joined together in a task that was humble, but, through interaction with an artefact of such beauty & grace, noble too. ëThe ideal moment for a cold beerí, I thought. I reached down & patted the Dyson on itsÖ well, shoulder, I suppose, & bounded up the remaining stairs.
And then, halfway along the corridor, I stopped, a frisson of horror casting a cold shaft through the centre of the epiphanic warmth. I realised with sick certainty what had just happened to me: in spite of every defence measure taken, every carefully installed firewall of anti-materialistic disinformation, the virus of consumerism had finally wormed its way to the very core of my being & I had fallen in love with a domestic appliance.
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We bought Rosie a mobile. Itís bolted to the side of her cot. It plays a rather haunting little tune & four fluffy birds of no clear provenance wobble around for the duration of the clockwork motor. The moment that it starts an expression of absolute beatitude lights up her face & she stares unblinkingly at the circular parade as one contemplating a vision of the Holy Grail.
Clearly at this early point in her developing consciousness she considers this simple mechanism to be a thing of matchless beauty. I shall remember this when she demands the next incarnation of the cabbage patch doll or, God help us, Barbie.
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There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is though everything is a miracle.
ALBERT EINSTEIN
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.
SAMUEL BECKETT
ìThe days of struggle are overî, I should be able to say. ìI can look back now & tell myself that I donít have a single regret.î
But I do.
Many years ago a very wise man named Bernard Baruch took me aside & put his arm around my shoulder.
ìHarpo, my boy,î he said. ìIím going to give you three pieces of advice, three things that you should always remember.î
My heart jumped and I glowed with expectation. I was going to hear the magic password to a rich, full life from the master himself.
ìYes, sir?î I said. And he told m the three things.
I regret Iíve forgotten what they were.
HARPO MARX
10:55:40 PM 
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