Friday Four

1. I'm not sure whether to call the following sign of the times good news or bad news: "You Will Soon Be Able To Rent Out Office Space Inside a Staples Store." My uncertainty lies from the impetus of Staples's contemplated move, in anti-trust regulation.

2. Sometimes, it pays to make a stand for etiquette:

Me: Dave, you've been a client for a long time and I'll do anything you want. But your employee is a jerk. He's rude, unprofessional, has been verbally abusive and he is not allowed to ever call us ever again.

Dave was silent for a few seconds.

Dave: You know, you're absolutely right. That guy is a total ass. I'm sick of him too. I'm just going to fire him, it's about time. Sorry you had such trouble with him. [link dropped, format edits]

My kudos go to the two bosses involved.

3. This year, Arsenal should have won the English Premier League, or at least come much closer to winning it than it did. That said, the season ended on a humorous note, with the unexpected arrival of St. Totteringham's Day:

St. Totteringham's Day is the day when Arsenal fans celebrate the fact that Tottenham can no longer catch Arsenal in the League. It is a movable feast, but usually falls in March, April or May. It is the day to collect on bets made by over-optimistic Spurs fans in the close season who think that "this is the year".

All Spurs had to do, no matter Arsenal's result, was at least draw Newcastle, who had already been relegated, and had nothing to play for. Despite a good season, the arch-rivals obliged, losing 5-1 to a side that had a man sent off when the score was only 2-1. This made Olivier Giroud's hat trick -- after an interminable scoring drought -- during Arsenal's final game all the more amusing.



4. Here's an amusing vignette from World War I:

There were pilots who took the precaution of teaching their observers to fly, with the primitive dual-control fitted to the R.E.8 of those days -- and at least one couple who used to take over the controls almost indiscriminately from one another: there was the story that went round the mess, of Creaghan (the pilot) arriving down out of the air one day and accusing his observer of having made a bad landing, and of Vigers, the observer, in turn accusing Creaghan of having made a bad landing. It turned out on investigation that each of them had thought the other to be in control of the aircraft; that because of this neither of them, in fact, had been in control at all; and that, in the absence of any guiding authority, the machine had made a quite fairly creditable landing on her own.

For a bit more background, see Futility Closet.

-- CAV