Monday 9 May 2011

I've come to wish you an unhappy birthday

Being rather of a melancholic and sardonic disposition myself, I feel I should mark our leader's birthday: A. A. Milne's Eeyore is apparently 140 years old. He is also, I've always assumed, the inspiration for Douglas Adams's Marvin the Paranoid Android.

Eeyore:

"Good morning, Pooh Bear," said Eeyore gloomily. "If it is a good morning," he said. "Which I doubt," said he.
"Why, what's the matter?"
"Nothing, Pooh Bear, nothing. We can't all, and some of us don't. That's all there is to it."
"Can't all what?" said Pooh, rubbing his nose.  
"Gaiety. Song-and-dance. Here we go round the mulberry bush."
Marvin:


The dew has fallen with a particularly sickening thud this morning.


Eeyore:

"Eeyore," said Owl, "Christopher Robin is giving a party." 
"Very interesting," said Eeyore. "I suppose they will be sending me down the odd bits which got trodden on. Kind and Thoughtful. Not at all, don't mention it."
Marvin:
Wearily on I go, pain and misery my only companions. And vast intelligence, of course. And infinite sorrow.
..here I am, brain the size of a planet, and they ask me to go down and park cars... 
Eeyore:
"I might have known," said Eeyore. "After all, one can't complain. I have my friends. Somebody spoke to me only yesterday. And was it last week or the week before that Rabbit bumped into me and said 'Bother!'. The Social Round. Always something going on." 
Marvin:
Do you want me to sit in the corner and rust, or just fall apart where I'm standing?
Eeyore:

"That's right, Eeyore. Drop in on any of us at any time, when you feel like it."
"Thank you, Rabbit. And if anybody says in a Loud Voice 'Bother, it's Eeyore,' I can drop out again."

Marvin:

 I think you ought to know I'm feeling very depressed
I'm not getting you down at all, am I?
 Eeyore:
He turned around angrily on the others and said "Everybody crowds round so in this Forest. There's no Space. I never saw a more Spreading lot of animals in my life, and in all the wrong places."
Marvin:
Life's bad enough as it is without wanting to invent any more of it.
Life, loathe it or ignore it, you can't like it.

Why should I want to make anything up? Life's bad enough as it is without wanting to invent anymore of it.

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