*Ping*

The number 77,777 can be written as a haiku in English, with 17 syllables in a 5-7-5 shape:

<Seventy seven
Thousand, seven hundred and
Seventy seven.>

So can many others. Anyone know the smallest? The largest? The cutest? The strangest? The most charming?

Hey, you might as well be first to hear it. I 'quit' my 'job'. For real. Haven't felt so free in decades. I'll write with gory details, soon, OK? As in, gimme a day or two, and don't worry.

You'll have to buy a lance, of course.

I dislike *scenes*, as you know. So I couldn't throw a giant wobbly and storm out. I wish I had done, now, but I'm just too unassertive in practice.

So the sitch seems to be that I quit, then partly unquit by conceding that I'll be available in future for *some* work, while I also get on with doing other stuff. And not allow one deformed editorial relationship dominate my life. As it were.

Sir Henry Rawlinson has a brother, Hubert (played by Viv Stanshall in the film version -- which was meant to be black-and-white but came out kinda brown-and-yellow for technical reasons that nobody understands to this day).

Anyhow, we were talking about *unusuality*. This is why Hubert is one of my heroes. He is said to be "in his mid-forties and still unusual".

One of his hobbies involves throwing himself naked on the front lawn and thinking very hard about Jean Harlow. A cinematic actress of some pneumatic repute, m'lud. From the shadow cast, he can tell the time "with remarkable accuracy".

He also tells a story about his father: "We were on top of a bus in Regent Street, and I could see right into Brainwashing House. I could see them all in there, running around, catching diseases and giggling. My father leaned across and said to me, 'You'll be in there if you don't stop playing with yourself'. A remarkable man. He died of chrysanthemum poisoning."

A serious contender for a top prize appears in the Irish Times of April 17th. It reads simply:

<Survivors Split after meeting Taoiseach>

[A 'taoiseach', pronounced 'tea-shock' is an Irish prime minister. One wonders what went down ...]

A: I'm outta here, man. Lucky to be alive, I guess.

B: Phew, yes. Did you see him take down Alice with that flick-knife? Or the way he took Bob's ... uh ... [breaks down in helpless tears]

A; Terrible, terrible. Man, that Teashock is one lethal weapon. We were so helpless. I felt ... [sobs]

C: [landing awkwardly beside them] Oh thank God you two are alive. I thought I was the only one ... we have to get away from here fast ... he could follow us out ...

A: What about the soldiers?

C: All dead. Keep your heads down. We'll work towards that hole in the fence, okay?

Yes, truth can be shocking, and the absence of truth even more so. But one seeks more than mere shock.

<Dom> I was pleasantly surprised to see you "involved" at the <Rogue page>, providing some direction and guidance with the patented humorous touch...

I had exactly the same thought about cormier's 'tks', btw. It's cool.

<tks>

I *still* haven't learned to use <search kibitzing> properly. I don't know which pages have it and which don't, or even if it can be placed with the default links at the top or bottom of a page.

Maybe it's everywhere, but I somehow disabled it?

I sometimes do a search when I stumble across it, but I have to stumble first. Even after all these years. What's the best way to access this function?

There's an <Extra> box at the bottom of the <Customize enhanced menu> page where you can put in something like this

ChessBookForum http://www. chessgames.com /perl/chessuser?uname=chessbookforum