Random reminder

Press, 9 December 1976, Page 28

Random reminder

JACK THE RIPPER

Television has made the most of human frailty in many of its aspects, not the least being the inability of some of us to do "anything properly. "Some Mothers Do ’ave ’em.” the misadventures of Edgar Briggs and of Maxwell Smart are recent examples: but these series are not airy concoctions of the script writers. They are based on hard fact. Mishaps are meat and drink to the friends of the unfortunates. and often, later, to the victims themselves, who have to see the funny side to preserve their sanity. We know of a young man who makes a regular practice of fouling up some 70 per cent

of the domestic tasks given him, and ho raised his average a little one recent week-day morning. It was rubbish dav, and he trotted out to his gate with his shiny blue plastic bag full of the week's refuse. But he was seconds too late: the truck was rumbling past as he got there. But he had previously been out to start his shining new car to warm it up, so he thrust the bag into it and set off in pursuit. A couple of blocks or so down the road he caught the truck, parked ahead r£ it, and told the men wh» had happened They were willing to oblige him. in fact distinctly helpful.

“Where is it?” asked one young giant is the crew. And before he even had time to reply, the collector had found it and pulled it out of the car by the neck. He was courteous, and he was kind. But he was unaware that our hopeless hero had carefully caught the plastic bag, at its most vulnerable point, over a door handle. At a conservative estimate, seven-eighths of the assorted and unattractive contents of the bag were spread over the back seat and the floor. The collector took the tiny remainder away, without comment. They really are welt trained.