TODAY'S FAVOURITE WORD

If ever I were to have a favourite word for each day of the week, or if days of the week favoured words, Monday's favourite would be: Pantechnicon. A pantechnicon is an underground mine rail system that carries all the exciting necessities for operating gigantic gnawing machines 4000 feet underground. The compartments on a pantechicon are called sleds. My favourite is the District Control Box Sled. The DCB Sled supplies electricity to those machines, which look more like prototypes for mechanized world domination designed by an evil computer than insensate diggers at the service of mankind. Coal shearers, for example, run about 45 feet in length and weigh 90 metric tonnes. They move at at rate of 30 to 45 feet per minute, although the Twenty Mile Colliery in the US apparently has a souped-up machine that eats coal at 140 feet per minute. I'm amazed, actually, that people have put such gigantic machines underground, that we can walk the streets or sit in the shade of a chestnut tree while these things dig out the ground beneath us.

In the event that the pantechnicon cannot fulfill its duties as Monday's favourite word, its duties will be taken by gob and goaf, which are both terms for the collapsed and useless dirt left behind after the shearers and the ploughs and the chippers have chewed through the earth and removed the useful materials. These pan-continental terms for mined-out dirt will be appearing next Saturday at the South Lawford Mall from 8:00 AM to 3:00 PM. Come on down and get your picture taken under a ton of gob.

MARI'S SISTER ASKS THE HARD QUESTIONS AND GETS THE STUPID ANSWERS

Occasionally people write to The Palinode in hopes of receiving T-shirts, stickers, brief recognition and a list of all the free grocery store promo snacks I've sampled in the last month. Most often people write in to get answers to the questions that have been bugging them during the day and keeping them hellishly awake at night, starting off like soft music heard from distant rooms but slowly sharpening into a mosquito's maddening buzz. You wave your hands around madly, you switch on the bedside light and hunt vainly with sleep-addled eyes. You enlist the services of earthy thugs Gob and Goaf to bury it under tons of loose dirt, but to no avail. Eventually you need my services.

Today Mari's Sister wants to know the answer to this question: Why are thunderstorms always accompanied by emergency vehicle sirens? Well, Mari's Sister, I'm happy you asked, because I have a series of answers, each one closer to the truth than the last. The first and least plausible answer is that you have fallen victim to a kind of post hoc ergo prompter hoc. Ha ha ha! That's rich. The truth is that most thunderstorms you see are actually being pulled along and guided by those vehicles whose sirens you hear. Most thunderstorms tend to be rectangular or lozenge-shaped, borne aloft on warm air and attached to the ground by delicate wires. When winds threaten to snap the wires and send the thunderstorm willy-nilly across the land and out to sea - where they will drown - the wires are affixed to emergency vehicles. These specialized vehicles, camouflaged to resemble police cars, ambulances and firetrucks, must drive the storm away from the heavy winds without snapping the lines or steering too close to the lethal sea. Usually attempts are made to keep the storms away from heavily populated areas, since they prefer to feed on tall trees, metal aerials and upraised golf clubs. In the event that emergency vehicles need to drive through your area with a thunderstorm in tow, you will hear the sirens announcing their presence. This is a sign to stop playing golf.

This service is provided by non-profit groups without benefit of government funding or corporate sponshorhip. Please give generously to protect our nation's thunderstorms.

FROM THE PERSONAL LIFE

Back when I was only dating The Lotus (in the futuristic-sounding year 2000) she carried a bookmark in her purse with the phrase "Dial-A-Wife" written in black marker across the back. Every so often she would go through her purse in search of change, cigarettes, a paperback, what have you, eventually pulling out the "Dial-A-Wife" bookmark and staring at it as if she'd never seen it in her life. Then a smile would break across her face and she would tell me about her great business idea, which consisted of running errands for invalids and busy people. She also called it Gopher Girl, which always gave me an immediate visual for a business card.

parode - exode