The jackdaw sat on the Cardinal’s chair!

 

The jackdaw sat on the Cardinal’s chair!

 

Richard Harris Barham

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“And what else,” said Morris, with studied casualness, “do they say about this chair?” He did not really have to wait for her reply to know that here, at last, was a prize worthy of his ambition. The UNESCO Chair of Literary Criticism! That had to carry the highest salary in the profession....'Tax free, of course, like all UNESCO salaries.' Duties? Virtually non-existent...It was a purely conceptual chair (except for the stipend)...

 

David Lodge

 

To the gross senses the chair seems solid and substantial. But the gross senses and be refined by means of instruments. Closer observations are made, as the result of which we are forced to conclude that the chair is “really” a swarm of electric charges whizzing about in empty space. ... While the substantial chair is an abstraction easily made from the from the memories of innumerable sensations of sight and touch, the electric charge chair is a difficult and far-fetched abstraction from certain visual sensations so excessively rare (they can only come to us in the course of elaborate experiments) that not one man in a million has ever been in the position to make it for himself. The overwhelming majority of us accept the electric-charge chair on authority, as good Catholics accept transubstantiation.

 

Aldous Huxley

 

It actually went like this: we were at school and Ben said he didn’t like Nirvana so much. Then one of our friends said: You should listen to Sliver. So he wanted to request Sliver for himself on the radio. And I wanted to request a song of an Australian group(You Am I), Berlin Chair. We told Chris to write Sliver Chair, but he wrote it as Silver Chair. Then we thought: That’s a good name. That’s how it went.

 

Daniel Johns

 

There is one language I can't understand, because it's from another planet, another dimension - that is the language of dentists. They speak in some kind of code, it's quite disturbing and sinister. They'll talk to you perfectly normally. You'll be sitting there like that [[simulates someone sitting on a dentists' couch with some kind of dental equipment in mouth) and they'll look down at you. 'Everything alright?' 'Yes, thank you very much'. Then, they'll turn to their assistant, and it all changes then, doesn't it? 'Jane. Some four. Some nine over the two. Mix me up some kraal (mimes antlers) over the ma-ma-ma-ma (does something strange with hands) Cheese. Go. Im. Shh. Nuhnuhnuhnuhnuh.' (in chair, frightened expression) 'What?' 'Seek out the chalky dust of the love-salmon' (in chair, confused expression) 'What?' Well, obviously, they can't refer to the instruments as they appear to us, otherwise we'd be out of the chair in a trice, wouldn't we? 'Jane, The Claw.' (in chair, terrified expression) 'Hand me The Colonel! The Punisher! The Talons of Saloth Sar!' Just to let them know I'm onto them I always freak them out right back - they look down and say 'Everything alright?' and I look up and I say (in chair, psychotic voice) 'The pheasant has no agenda'.
Ch. 23, 51:53

 

Bill Bailey

 

And the priests, with awe,
As such freaks they saw,
Said, “The Devil must be in that little Jackdaw!”

 

Richard Harris Barham