The message 200511061547.46408.matt@mpcontracting.co.uk from Matt Parker matt@mpcontracting.co.uk contains these words:
Compare and contrast the other response to my post by Jonathan McDowell and your initial response and see who is the argumentative one.
Back in the days when the world was young, and so was I, I lived in a Scout hostel in the East End of London. Scouting is very much like Linux - it has to be done the right way, and for some, there is no room for differences of opinion.
We will call the acters in this scene George and Bill, mainly because those were their names. Now it happened that George, who was a resident, and Bill, who was not, were practical jokers par excellence, and I shouldn't think there was anyone at Roland House who didn't have a score to settle, and I was certainly not the exception.
I happened on George and Bill one evening after supper. They were in the kitchen, and chatting about this and that.
Enter the Demon King(let).
George and Bill held diametrically opposite views about capitation, the main source of income sor the (then) Boy Scouts' Association, and I spied my chance. Somehow, I worked capitation into the conversation, and after making sure that much heat and very little light was being generated, I slipped away and repaired to my room. There I had an ancient Reporter wind-up tape recorder. I took this to the dining room and placed it in the dumb waiter and quietly lowered it to the kitchen.
The next day I played it back - well, enough of it for it to register that they'd been had - the tape ran out long before they'd finished.
Now, really, I didn't start this on purpose, honest.
However, I'll bear its possibilities in mind for a future occasion...