Sunday, March 23, 2008

Patroclus And Mr BC Discuss...Incunabula

INT. LIVING ROOM - NIGHT

PATROCLUS and MR BC are watching woeful climate-change disaster movie The Day After Tomorrow. The film's young heroes are holed up in the New York Public Library, weathering the sudden onset of the new Ice Age.

YOUNG HERO: I found a copy of the Gutenberg Bible downstairs, in the rare books section.

MR BC: Rubbish. The Gutenberg Bible is in the British Library. Where it belongs.

ME: Surely it belongs in Gutenberg.

MR BC (charitably overlooking the fact that he is clearly going out with the middle-class Jade Goody): I think it's called that because it was made by a Mr Gutenberg.

ME: Well then...er...in Germany somewhere.

MR BC (consulting Wikipedia): Hm, it says there are actually 48 copies, in libraries around the world.

ME: I suppose that was kind of the point of the whole enterprise.

MR BC: What was?

ME: To have more than one copy.

MR BC: Apparently one of them *is* in the New York Public Library. Bugger.

On screen, a wave of super-cooled air descends from the troposphere, causing a skyscraper to turn instantly into a massive block of ice.

ME: I think you've uncovered the only realistic plot point in this entire film.

14 comments:

Geoff said...

Only 48 copies?

The Gideons have a lot to answer for.

Anonymous said...

You find out about one incunalaba and then thousands of them come along at once at the Vatican. Had to write about them. Funny, life, innit.

Annie said...

*giggles*

cello said...

I think you are slightly beyond 'going out with'.

patroclus said...

Geoff: It's arguable whether a character in a disaster movie would be moved to save a Gideon Bible 'for future civilisations', but if he or she did, I'm sure it would go down well in the Midwest.

W: I've read your comment quite a few times now, and I still have no idea what you're going on about. Is it the plot of a Dan Brown novel?

Annie: *is pleased*

Cello: Perhaps 'has knocked up', then?

Annie said...

Jade: 'They were trying to use me as an escape goat.'

Awww.

Betty said...

If you are the middle class Jade Goody, what hope is there for those of us who are genuinely stupid?

(Thinks ... may change the strapline on my blog to "the amoeba of blogging")

patroclus said...

Annie: I like the one about the peacocks very much as well.

Betty: Amoeba my arse, yours is one of the funniest and intelligentest blogs IN THE WORLD, and I expect the Observer to confirm that any day now.

Boz said...

Yes. The group of British people stoically going to their death drinking whiskey struck me as a bit unrealistic. If it were me I'd be running around that shed in Scotland crapping my waterproofs. Dignity be bugg'rd.

Billy said...

I think being the middle-class Jade Goody is something to aspire to.

I aspire to West London's answer to Phil Harding. I can't think of one way I am like him though.

Tim F said...

Can I be the petit-bourgeois answer to Maureen from Driving School?

Anonymous said...

I thought the man mesmerised by the Man Utd game (he had a southern accent of course) as the nuclear reactor's temperature - or whatever it was - went through the roof was very realistic. Although he would have turned it off 10 minutes before the end to get home, what with the temperature mildly dropping and everything.

My point badly made earlier was that I had to write about incunabula last week, although, as far as I know, I am not Dan Brown.

nuttycow said...

Pah. At least you weren't stuck watching Addams Family Values!

llewtrah said...

Would he have saved it had it been a rare copy of the Koran?