Friday 9 November 2007

Emergency

One of the photographs I recently unearthed was this (my deletion of the phone numbers):














I'm unsure of precisely the kind of real emergency in which one would require a painting.

23 comments:

Anonymous said...

Pre-photography passport photos?

nmj said...

trews, i imagine a customer arriving: i need a painting right f***ing now!

btw, your comments on hospital post are missing - blogger does that sometimes. you can fix it in post settings.

Pants said...

Hi Trews

Believe me, it happens!

xxx

Pants

trousers said...

Very possibly, szwag. Which makes me wonder: when were passports invented (or discovered, as the case may be)?

nmj, surely that would be a vittun painting right now?

Oh and thanks for spotting that, I'll have a look at my settings in a bit, I'm not sure how that's happened.

Do tell, pants, I'm intrigued!

My own thoughts are along the lines of cartoon scenarios where someone paints a hole in the wall or the ground through which to escape. But that's only a pretend emergency (cartoons aren't real, I recently discovered).

Anonymous said...

From here:

One of the earliest references to passports is found in the Bibical book of Nehemiah. Circa 450 B.C., Nehemiah, an official serving King Artaxerxes of ancient Persia, asked permission to travel to Judah. The King agreed and gave Nehemiah a letter "to the governors beyond the river" requesting safe passage for him as he travelled through their lands, Nehemiah 2:7-9.

Just imagine the difficulties. You'd have to carry the bloody Rosetta stone around so that ancient passport officials could translate your letter.

Fire Byrd said...

Oh it's no good I tried to be witty on this one and failed miserably, maybe I need an emergency painting now to cheer me up.
pxx

Unknown said...

I have a Rosetta stone t-shirt, which is slightly more portable than the actual stone. It's to the original as a painting is to a passport photo. Except the other way round.

*confuses herself*
*leaves*

Anonymous said...

szwag, you're a gentleman and a scholar. I gather you can get mini-sized Rosetta stones in the museum shop, maybe that was what they ended up using? Or T-shirts as worn by nell(hi Nell!).

Then again, maybe having one of those T-shirts would denote your status as a translator.

Then again again, I'm wondering about the difficulties of proof-reading the Rosetta stone. Would you need a chisel?

pixie, there's no problems with not coming out with witticisms: it's never hindered me :)

Anonymous said...

I'm guessing the comments on the previous post have been censored because of my rant on airport security and ironic advice to would-be t********s. If you thought it was inappropriate, t, I apologise.

If it's Google's fault, then that says something rather unpleasant about power without responsibility and imagination.

Merkin said...

'Then again, maybe having one of those T-shirts would denote your status as a translator.'

No.
It would identify you as a sad bastard who was also a fan of Rosetta Stone, formed after the break up of the Bay City Rollers.
Don't do it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_Stone_(1970s_band)

Lady in red said...

your hospital experience was hilarious I loved that you kept sitting up and lying down again.

Anonymous said...

szwag, it's turned out to be progressive fuck-ups c/o me, and a bit of a headache.

merkin I'm sure you'll understand if I don't click on that link, they sound terrible! I'm sure I'll have a look during a dark moment...but - you CAN get T-shirts of the Rosetta Stone itself, as in NOT the band of that name.

lady in red glad you enjoyed the hospital shenanigans :)

Merkin said...

Wasn't there an advert a number of years ago in which the kds wreck the house with an all night party while the parents are away?
The end sees them getting the house into order and just as the parents come in the door they notice that someone has painted a 'tache on an Old Master of The Madonna (or something like that).
Happens to us all some time and these guys have obviously seen a gap in the market.

Anonymous said...

Oh, that and a host of other examples merk. To (badly) paraphrase a certain mister Hicks, they'll put a dollar sign on anything these days.

But - I'd rather see something which at least references something of historical or cultural value than not, on balance. So I'm all for nell wearing her T-shirt, as long as it's the actual Rosetta Stone and not the band of the same name :)

Merkin said...

Sorry, big man.
Well, not really.
Wonder what 'Shang-a-lang' is in German?

DJ Kirkby said...

My paint jobs lokk like emergencies! I've tagged you c'mon over...

zola a social thing said...

Walter Benjamin needed this kind of post methinks.

fuck these grzkeao passports

zola a social thing said...

now it is nmzer

nmzer
work out this soon and patten it.
Damn it it has already been done.

Fear verification is all that is left.

Unknown said...

I am travelling to Germany later today. I will be wearing the Rosetta stone (not the band :) ) t-shirt as an experiment to see if it gets me across the border.

Perhaps I should pack the passport as well, just as a back up...

trousers said...

No worries merk.

A quick online translation makes shang a lang - you guessed it - shang ein lang. Beautiful.

Hi dj, I've been double-tagged! I'm usually keen to avoid them but since it's the same tag from two people then how can I refuse...

Do I sense a little bit of frustration there zola? I'll take the "word" verification off and see if the blasted spammers have gone elsewhere.

nell, do report back on this :)

Oh, and before I completely forget my manners, apologies to anyone who commented on the previous thread. I made a mess of it. Sorry.

Anonymous said...

my initial reaction to this post was to laugh. But then I slipped into what my kids tell me off for all the time, taking things too seriously. Often they say, oh muuum I was being sarcastic. Oh. Oh right. Um... (feels old and daggy for a few seconds).

Any way, if you had a painting in an exhibition and had it in being framed, was running late and came to pick it up only to find the bloody framer closed then you might have an emergency...? and just breath a sigh of relief for those little emergency numbers.

Anonymous said...

Damn - bindi, that's just too bloody feasible and....well that's it in fact, you've come up with the most feasible answer. Nice one!

Anonymous said...

elementary my dear trousers! :)